The event has come and gone, but the opportunity to donate or contribute some time to a good cause dedicated to fighting tuburculosis in India still exists.  I had the great privilege to hear Shelly Batra – the head of Asha – speak today on fighting TB in India, and this is just as worthy of a cause as most out there.  I’m also very glad to have been able to support this organization with hosting and coding for a few e-mails they’ve been sending out in the lead-up to this event.

And that’s what I really want to write about tonight.

Coding for e-mails is like taking a trip back into the late 20th century.  Tables, inline styles, and direct formatting are de rigueur.  If you want to make a really successful e-mail with images, you also need to host them on a server that’s up 24/7.  Forget CSS and divs, too.  This can be both frustrating and amusing as you find yourself coding in ways you’ve tried to break the habit of doing.

So what’s the deal?  Why, after all the movements toward standardization on the web, have we not moved towards standardizing and updating web programming in e-mails?  Is it the added variables of mail clients?  I doubt it.  Web programming already has to account for so many different types of user environments, and it does so quite well.

So why is it that we’re still stuck using tables and in-line styles for e-mail here in 2009?  Anyone have an answer?

That Ashton Kutcher beat CNN to 1 million followers on Twitter shows promise for the medium and poses a challenge to any social platform out there to rise to.  Now we just need a normal guy to do this.  This is a follow-up to my earlier article on the subject that you can find here.

It’s interesting to note that on Facebook, the four most followed accounts are large institutions, organizations, or things (Barack Obama, Coca-Cola, Nutella, Pizza)[1. Statistics per this article, which is admittedly almost a month old, but nevertheless, I feel it's still largely representative of the contrasts between Twitter and Facebook, and goes a long way in showing just where Twitter diverges from Facebook as an arena for individuals instead of entities].  Top Facebook accounts also include Twilight[2. twice!] – a vampire romance novel, chocolate, and Bob Marley.  Of course, the list continues with some celebrities, but in comparison to Twitter, the individual to entity ratio is vastly skewed toward larger entities.  Not to mention that top Facebook accounts read like items you might find in a teen magazine.

Conversely, top Twitter accounts include Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day, and Stephen Fry (though admittedly, in the list I’m currently referencing, CNN and Barack Obama are at the top, followed by Britney Spears and later Ashton Kutcher).  But, by and large, there are very few “groups” that are largely followed on Twitter compared to Facebook, and one could assume, any other popular social platform currently out there.  Twitter is a social platform dominated by individuals that allows for deeper conversation between those people.

How it makes this possible still eludes me, but I have a feeling it has something to do with the more genuine content Twitter seems to tease out of people, the built-in interface that allows for one-way conversations and relationships, as well as extensibility of third party interface apps (something Facebook fails at completely) that allow you to filter content you want to read while still monitoring all the rest of the unfiltered material whenever you want.

So what does Kutcher’s win over CNN have to do with any of this?  For one, it confirms something we already knew: Twitter is for individuals more than it is for larger organizations.  But secondly, and most importantly, I think it shows that Twitter has tapped into some interesting formula that allows for more (seemingly) concrete relationships between accounts (users) than ever before.  This includes those who follow celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, Kevin Nealon, or even, as I found out after shooting a tweet @NeilDiamond, Neil Diamond[3. He loved working on the set of Saving Silverman and, per a question from my friend @TylerJ, was eating "steak, mashed potatoes, asparagus, NY cheesecake, cappuccino" the day he took questions.  Yes, the real Neil Diamond!].  Yes, the real Neil Diamond.

Twitter: An interesting battle took place last night as Ashton Kutcher went up against CNN for the first account to have 1 million followers.  As I stayed up late watching Kutcher cheer for his followers on UStream[1. this is something I never thought I'd find myself saying for several different reasons], CNN was broadcasting on their network encouraging people to follow them.  Minutes ticked by, and Kutcher’s lead increased over CNN’s until it was all but certain that he would win by a thousand votes or so[2. This is a drop in the bucket if you consider, a) the amount of people following Kutcher and CNN, and, b) the relative volatility of the internet, and its ability to swing support wildly in one direction or another within a small amount of time.  Of course, this might all depend on the capacity of a server to deal with heavy loads like Twitter must have been experiencing last night, in which case a sudden influx of users wouldn't matter if the server capped the traffic].

Around 1:15 AM Central time, Kutcher finally rang in his 1 millionth follower.

This is the first time I can think of that an individual has beat a traditional, large organization in a very quantifiable way.  And I know that some will say Kutcher’s celebrity status disqualifies him from being called an “individual”, or that his status somehow separates him from other individuals – which I can agree with to a certain extent – but I don’t buy that it makes him more powerful than an entire news organization. This is really the central matter: that one person was able to organize and defeat an organization – and a news organization to boot – at its own game.  It’s been said that the internet is a great equalizer, but up until this point, there were very few mediums that could claim they allowed for this possibility to become a reality.

I’m having a hard time sorting out any concrete, coherent thoughts on what this says about Twitter, social tools, and the internet from any general perspective.  I’ll be sure to post more this weekend once I get it all sorted out.

I should also point out, as a matter of social responsibility, that Kutcher has promised to donate 10,000 malaria nets (and so has CNN!) to Malaria No More in celebration of hitting the 1 million mark.  Good for them!

EDITED for malaria net count accuracy.  Can’t a guy make a mistake at 3 in the morning?

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

Has Google Analytics for Adobe AIR been pulled completely?  I can’t find any write-ups on its disappearance, but I also can’t find one working page where I can download Analytics.  I really enjoyed the tool, as it allowed me to keep up with my website traffic without having to open Firefox, browse to analytics, and work through the website interface.

If you know anything about this strange disappearance, please shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment below.

I get at least 5-10 spam comments a day that Akismet totally blocks out from my blog.  Usually, the posters are trying to publish something flattering or funny – which I’m okay with – but there’s little substance in their remarks.  Isn’t there some way that I could possibly be spammed, but on a higher level?  Can I get some more intelligent spammers instead of the regular bots that I’m sure they’re crawling my site with?

Is there a Spambot out there that’s at least a little bit more personable?

My Plea: come on spammers.  Can’t we just post legit shit?  Suck it up, commit to a sale, and let’s see how I receive your outreach.  I’m obviously deleting all your other fake posts, so what do you have to lose?  Contribute to my blog, and the traffic will be reciprocated[1. provided you aren't peddling trash].  Let the contest begin.

Happy Friday.

Or is it catching on!?  First, here’s something that I posted over the past few days under #Really?

“HE was caught stealing a stack of newspapers from Gas City in Frankfort.”  This is what the Democrats in my area are up to; this is what your contributions are going to; this is a waste of paper.  Come on guys!  I know we’re stuck in a Republican district, but we can do better than this.

Now for some others I’ve found:

Too many social applications and not enough friends using them leads to forced, fake social app friendships!

Programs like Facebook and MySpace have succeeded in achieving a large user base, but fail in giving their users the ability to foster friendships and freely communicate. Because of this, you won’t see them on my list; anything that’s become too commercial to seem genuine has been cut out.

1. Twitter

   It isn’t just for short updates; the ways we can all use Twitter are only limited by our imaginations.

   www.twitter.com

2. Pandora

   Free online music that fits itself to your musical tastes. You can also create stations for friends, a la High Fidelity.

   www.pandora.com

3. Google Calendar

   An online calendar program that allows you to share your schedule or certain events with other friends.

   www.calendar.google.com

4. Google Reader

   RSS Readers give you the ability to pull your online reading together into one place. Google Reader helps you do that and share your favorite news with other friends on Reader.

   www.reader.google.com

5. Skype

   Free voice chat with anyone else who has Skype; a new iPhone client just came out that allows you to do the same on your phone.

   www.skype.com

For the sake of my own sanity and to save myself from sleep deprivation, I’ll make this one short tonight.

I found myself on the front porch of my house last night at around 11:30, midnight yesterday – smoking a pipe and just listening to the rain, really.  Waiting for a car to pull up, some people to jump out, and Oh! to get whisked away for being crazy and outside & smoking a pipe at midnight.  Or to be mistaken for some sort of loitering cat-burglar, perhaps too inept to actually ever enter a house, but too persistent to give up.

Anyway.

The point of the story is that, a) I found myself thinking outside late last night, and b) I came up with a really good idea.  And out of that idea, the #really? club was born.  So what’s #really?

#really is a Twitter group/tag that allows you to express your disbelief, astonishment, bewildermint, or the sentiment of ridiculousoness or absurdity.  In other words, we amaze ourselves with how amazingly stupid we can all be.  I wouldn’t be starting this if I thought it were a fad.

So where do we go from here?  Well, I’m going to start by incorporating a widget in my sidebar to track #really? posts and conversations.  From there, I’ll begin compiling and editing conversations between #really? participators, and perhaps even begin hosting #really? jam sessions on Twitter for an hour or so one day per week.

Let me know what you think of this idea, or any suggestions you may have for its improvement.  My apologies for the short Friday post, but I promise extra content for the weekend involving a TOP SECRET weekend project.

Until then, I bid you adieu.

Having a dual monitor setup saves me a lot of time with programming, blog posting, and other functions I find myself doing on a daily basis. Being a self-described computer geek, I’m constantly looking for the best way to tweak my computers to add more desktop space, increase my efficiency, and help accomplish my daily tasks faster. At the same time, everything has to look sleek and integrated.

And therein lies the rub.

There’s one glaring problem when you first switch to a multi-desktop setup, and it’s something that isn’t a problem with a single monitor setup: wallpaper. Namely, the only obvious option for setting a desktop wallpaper is to have it repeat on both monitors. This is less than ideal. What I’d really like is to have one desktop wallpaper that spans across both of my monitors (since I have my desktop set up to span, this seems logical enough).

There are two problems I’ll have to overcome to reach my goal:

• I need to find a wallpaper that spans my unique dual-monitor setup (1680×1050 resolution and 1400×1050 respectively)
• I need to figure out how to set a different background on each monitor.

Finding a wallpaper:

There are a few good websites I found that provide multi-desktop wallpapers. Some of these include deviantART, dualscreenwallpaper.com, or simply Googling “dual screen wallpaper” and browsing their Image gallery. Smashing Magazine also has a great article on dual screen wallpapers with a short list of websites at the end.

Anyway, after browsing the offerings on the interwebs I decided to create my own wallpaper using a panoramic photo I’d taken from a backpacking trip. Why? For a few reasons. One, because I didn’t really like any of the wallpapers that were out there. But the second and most important factor that weighed in on my decision is that nobody makes a wallpaper out there to fit a full 3080×1050 resolution.

Let’s begin. You’ll need image editing software for this part. If you don’t have a professional tool like Photoshop, I’d suggest downloading GIMP – a free, open source tool found here. Either should work fine for what we need to do, but because I have Photoshop, I’m going to do my example with it.

First, go to the Menu and select Image Size.

In the Image Size window, change your measurements to pixels, then set the width of your picture to fit the combined pixel width of both monitors[1. If your picture is taller than it is wide, you may need to crop it some] (to find this, right click on Desktop, go to Properties, then the Settings tab and combine the widths of both monitors). Since my image was a panorama, the resizing worked out nicely. However, I still had some space to fill on the top and bottom of my image due to the effects of auto-resizing which changed my image height to 714px. Remember, I want it to be 1050px high. So…

Go to Image>Canvas Size

In the Canvas Size window, I changed the canvas height to 1050px and set my Canvas extension color to black. Now that I’ve got one long image stretching 3080px wide and 1050px high, I need to crop it to fit two screens.

I select the crop tool and set the Width and Height of my crop to 1680 and 1050, respectively[2. The image says this is in inches, but it isn't]. I crop the first half of the image and save it as WPleft. I then go back to my stretched image, change the crop settings to 1400 and 1050, and crop the second half of the image (starting the crop from the right and moving leftwards). I save this as WPright.

We’re ready for the next step.

How to set a different background on each monitor:

We accomplish our second goal rather easily. First, right click on your desktop and select Properties. Navigate to the Desktop tab and click on the Customize Desktop button.

Next, in the new window that opens, click the New button.

Browse to the image that you’d like to set as your off-screen background (I’m not sure whether it really matters which screen you do this for, but I prefer the off-screen). Select OK, OK, Apply.

You’ll have a new window pop up on your desktop that contains your image. Hover your mouse over the upper-most edge of the new window until you see the maximize button in the upper-right hand corner. Drag the window into your off-screen monitor, and click the maximize button.

Finally, right click on your desktop again and go to Arrange Icons By and select Lock Web Items on Desktop.

Now all that’s left is to set your main monitor desktop background by right clicking on the desktop and going to Properties, clicking on the Desktop tab, and Browsing to your main monitor’s image.

Here’s my background if you, like me, have a weird 3080×1050 desktop stretch:

Left Side
Right Side

And the final product (for Christ’s sake, Oliver):

I hope you found this Tutorial helpful!

Preface:

Many months ago my wife’s computer blue screened.  I tried recovering the data with Ultimate Boot CDs and other traditional methods of data recovery, but was never able to pull anything off her drive.  Obviously, I’m kicking myself in the head for this since I should’ve known better – but the fact is, I realize the mistake and need to take preventative measures for the future.  To that end, I’m attempting to build a server to protect all of our information.

I’m pretty good with computers, though I’m by no means an expert in this particular arena.  Building a server is something I’d love to put under my belt, though, and so in that spirit I’d like to show you all the following project I’m challenging myself with.

The Foundation:

I’ve got a box built out of spare parts in my basement, sitting next to my TV.  It has a video card with DVI output, two 500 gig IDE drives, a DVD burner/player, and ~2 gigs of RAM.  I’ve installed LinuxMCE on top of Ubuntu 7.04 (for reasons of compatibility), but have slowly come to the conclusion that this is not going to help me accomplish my goal…

The Idea:

I want a box that does it all.  First, and most important, I need RAID running to back all my data up.  It’ll have to be a soft RAID since I don’t have a card in my box.  From what I understand, since I only have 2 drives, the kind of RAID I can run is limited.  I also want a partition set aside for a LAMP dev. server.  I do quite a bit of programming (especially lately), and would like an environment that’s backing up all of my work.  On top of that, I’d like some sort of media & document management system set up on this box to protect my videos, music, and (in best Mitch Hedberg voice) documents.

The task I’ve given myself is to build this entire server using all Open Source – and free – software.  LINUX seems like the most logical route, but the rest I’m not sure about.  Is LinuxMCE the best way to go?  Should I be using MythTV?  How many partitions am I going to need?

I suppose these are all questions I’ll have to find answers for at some point in this process, but if you want to drop me some helpful hints in the comments, I’d appreciate it!

—–

I’ll keep you all updated on my progress.  With a four day vacation coming up, I’ll surely have plenty of time to tinker and post the frustrations and mental & psychological breakdowns that will ensue.