Ryan Price and the Media

Links for 2008-11-29 [ma.gnolia]

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600

Fringe Benefits | Country Roads Online

Sixty-one years after the Edinburgh Fringe Festival changed live performance forever, New Orleans joins the party. “I can’t believe there isn’t one in New Orleans already,” Dennis Monn remembers thinking to himself while touring an original show he’d written. “One of my stops was in Minneapolis at the fringe festival there,” recalled Monn. “I’d been familiar with Fringes. But that was the first time I’d performed at one.” Soon he’ll be performing at another, happening this time in New Orleans—his home town. “Fringes” are a growing phenomenon, inspired by an unlikely festival that sprang into being in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1947, when the Edinburgh International Festival was launched. It was seen as a post-war initiative to re-unite Europe through culture, and was so successful that it attracted more interest than there was room to accommodate.

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Tags: new orleans, fringe, festival, newspaper, nana projects, theatre, puppets, bloggingfringe
New Orleans Fringe Theater Festival

November 13-16 2008: Over 100 wild, weird fresh and original shows at venues throughout New Orleans Forty groups from around the country and New Orleans will be presenting over 100 shows in venues across the city, primarily in the Marigny, Bywater and French Quarter. The shows include the exotic, the dramatic and the insane: drama, dance, one-person shows, cabaret, comedy, puppetry, clowning, circus/sideshow, improvisational, aerialist and many other creative works. Click here to see show descriptions and schedule.

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Tags: bloggingfringe, fringe, festival, theatre, new orleans

Links for 2008-11-28 [ma.gnolia]

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600

Simply Symbian’s Top 10 S60 3rd Edition apps! | Simply Symbian

We are quite picky in choosing applications that we think worth the hassle and money to be purchased. After spending some time with an E90 (yep… THE E90!!!), we came into conclusion that the following 10 applications are COMPULSORY for us to use S60 smartphones on a daily basis. And these are all native applications, not Java, not Python… These applications have been tested heavily and the numbers assigned to them are there for a reason.

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Tags: n96, apps, phone, lists, reviews, photos, video, im
Flickr: Help: Nokia and Flickr

Is there a place I can ask questions related to Nokia Nseries problems? As a matter of fact, there is! The good folks from Nokia have an exclusive Nokia Nseries group on Flickr where you can post questions, and they will be answered by Nokia staff and helpful Flickr members. I've entered my username and password on my Nokia set-up screen, but it still won't work. What's wrong? I'm seeing a weird "System Error" on my Nokia. What does that mean?

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Tags: n96, nokia, flickr, faq, help, tips
twibble :: a location aware twitter client for Mac OS, Windows, Mobile

twibble mobile is one of the best twitter clients for Java enabled devices. It supports all important twitter functions, uploading of photos via twitpic, GPS, and much more!

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Tags: n96, gps, twitter, apps, java, photo sharing, photos

Scary [Flickr]

Liberatr.net — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 15:46:04 -0600

Liberatr.net posted a photo:

This baby-teddy-partiot in the Crane Game at High Tide Harry's (a seafood restaurant) is just super-scary!

Links for 2008-11-26 [ma.gnolia]

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600

Thanksgiving List for Social Media | MemberFuse

we compiled our favorite and interesting social media sites, tools, and blogs to share with you. We are thankful for the formation of these to help business, and create a new way of communicating!

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Tags: blogs, lists, socialmedia, tips, nfi studios
How podcasts work with iPhone 2.2 and iTunes

they are now sorted from oldest to newest(!!) Podcasts can now be deleted by swiping from left to right, just like videos. Also like videos, they'll be synced right back to the iPhone during the next sync. Podcasts can also be found with the mobile iTunes search function. From the podcast episode list, it's possible to download episodes by pushing on the "free" button, and then on the "download" button that appears. When on the cellular network, the iPhone will bring up a error when trying to download podcast episodes bigger than 10MB. However, undownloaded episodes stay in the downloads list and will automatically be downloaded later when WiFi connectivity is available. Downloads waiting in the download list can be deleted with the usual swipe. Another way to quickly find them is selecting an iTunes Store podcast link in mobile Safari. the new desktop iTunes 8.0.2 will sync downloaded podcast episodes back to the computer and put them in the correct place in the podcast list

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Tags: iphone, ipod, podcast, download, synch, ars technica, itunes, safari
MODx Content Management System | Home

MODx is an open source PHP Application Framework that helps you take control of your online content. It empowers developers and advanced users to give as much control as desired to whomever they desire for day-to-day website content maintenance chores.

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Tags: cms, php, opensource, framework, ajax, blog, content

Links for 2008-11-23 [ma.gnolia]

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600

October 2008: Firefox, Opera gain & IE, Safari, Chrome drop

Chrome's explosive growth is slowly settling in, and I don't expect there will be much activity with it until Google releases the next milestone build. With the delay of IE8, third party browsers have been given even more time to do damage to IE's browser market. Chrome's entrance seems to have alternative browsers battling more against each other than with IE.

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Tags: browser, ars technica, blogs, firefox, safari, chrome, ie, opera
Glue Society on Vimeo

A creative collective comprising writers, directors, art directors and artists.

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Tags: installation, art, video, advertising, marketing, public, hacking, makers
WordCamp Miami

What is WordCamp? WordCamp is a conference type of event that focuses squarely on everything WordPress. Everyone from casual end users all the way up to core developers show up to these events. Who Should Be There? Anyone who has a passion for blogging, journalism, design, coding and the web in general. Anyone looking to invest in brilliant new ideas. Anyone looking to find partners for their brilliant new ideas. Anyone who wants to practice a presentation s/he is working on. Everyone is welcome. Everyone is encouraged to present. It’s totally free and an excellent source of what is hot, new and upcoming.

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Tags: floridacreatives, florida, miami, wordpress, unconference, fowa
AddressBookSync | Facebook Picture Synchronization with OS X Address Book

a Mac OS X application to download Facebook profile pictures to Address Book cards. This is a handy tool to keep your contacts' pictures updated if you have numerous Facebook friends in your Mac OS X Address Book. If your phone supports synchronization with Address Book you should be able to have your contacts' profile pictures show up when they call you. Birthday synchronization is also available (nice for the iCal birthday calendar). AddressBookSync supports the automatic matching of many common short/alternate first names between Facebook and Address Book (i.e. Michael and Mike, William and Bill, Jessica and Jess). Mac OS X 10.4 or greater is required to run AddressBookSync. AddressBookSync does not and will not support the synchronization of phone numbers or email addresses as Facebook does not allow this by their Terms of Service.

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Tags: address book, synch, facebook, photos, friends, apps, mac
The Gillmor Gang » Blog Archive » Gillmor Gang 11.21.08

The Gillmor Gang - Jason Calacanis, Marc Canter, Robert Anderson, and Hugh MacLeod - are joined by Chris Messina. Recorded Friday, Novemeber 21, 2008.

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Tags: chris messina, steve gillmor, calacanis, ria, web services, apps
Cappuccino Web Framework - Build Desktop Class Applications in Objective-J and JavaScript

Cappuccino is an open source application framework for developing applications that look and feel like the desktop software users are familiar with. Cappuccino is built on top of standard web technologies like JavaScript, and it implements most of the familiar APIs from GNUstep and Apple's Cocoa frameworks. When you program in Cappuccino, you don't need to concern yourself with the complexities of traditional web technologies like HTML, CSS, or even the DOM. The unpleasantries of building complex cross browser applications are abstracted away for you.

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Tags: javascript, ria, apps, languages, cross-browser, cocoa
Current jobs | Drupalbased.com - Showcasing Drupal Powered Sites

Drupal Jobs posted free to the Drupal Based website

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Tags: drupal, jobs, opensource, lists
Battledecks | Rocketboom

Battledecks contestants improvise conference presentations from previously unseen powerpoint slides. Jeff Tidwell is the moderator. Judges include Erika Hall and Jonathan Grubb. Contestants include George Kelly, Ted Rheingold, Rob Weichert, Jon Armstrong and Anil Dash.

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Tags: presentation, pecha kucha, ignite, floridacreatives, slideshow, contest, fun, battledecks

Peter Hirshberg on TV and the web - TED Talks

rprice@ryanpricemedia.com (Liberatr.net) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:38:38 +0000

Just a few minutes after I wrote my most recent “Internet killed TV” rant, I see this more well-informed and context-rich talk about the very same subject, complete with references to Marshall Mcluhan.

From Peter Hirshberg on TV and the web | Video on TED.com:

In this absorbing look at emerging media and tech history, Peter Hirshberg shares some crucial lessons from Silicon Valley and explains why the web is so much more than “better TV.”

A Silicon Valley executive, entrepreneur and marketing specialist, Peter Hirshberg might just be the definitive voice on how new technology affects business and culture. Full bio and more links

YouTube Has Replaced MTV

rprice@ryanpricemedia.com (Liberatr.net) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:16:09 +0000

It’s official - crappy reality TV has been replaced by reality, captured on your Flip™ brand camera!

You tube held their first ever awards show - YouTube Live, complete with Discovery Channel stars, pop (and anti-pop) music, ukuleles, breakdancers, vulgarity and lots more, all in a familiar MTV Music Awards-style format.

Now that YouTube has peaked, it’s time for some of the verticals and startups to try again. A few years ago, all you heard about was Yet Another Video Site popping up every 5 minutes. Now I fully expect cable networks, magazines, radio stations, and companies none of us have heard of to adopt similar tactics — most will fail, but a few will succeed, and we can stop subscribing to cable TV, because crappy entertainment, gossip, infinite programming and cheesey awards shows have now arrived on the internet too!

I expect also (more like hope) that there will be lots of directory services and lowest-common-denominator channels showing up, like the TV Guide of the web, the Home Shopping Channel (I guess SlickDeals and the like have gotten us part-way there), the religious video, and what have you.

One reason why we don’t see more cable networks rushing to put all their content online in its full form is the on-demand nature of it all. If you want to watch the Sopranos, you’re forced to watch what comes on a few minutes before and after, perhaps the entire show, and for HBO, especially the commercials for their other original programming and the movies of the month. This was an important way to hook the viewer into coming back.

However, DVRs and Tivo have killed that for people who don’t care about watching it in real time, so why do prime-time schedules even matter any longer? Everyone made a big deal about Barack Obama breaking in to the World Series for his 30 minute commercial, but weren’t people watching it on Tivo a few hours later, or the next day?

In the future, there will not be any possible way to grab the attention of that many people at once, unless we have another 9/11 (knock on wood). I don’t even have to watch the Superbowl any longer, I can catch all the commercials on YouTube the next morning.

What do we do now?

WordPress Plugins that stand the Test of Time

rprice@ryanpricemedia.com (Liberatr.net) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 06:24:21 +0000

I’ve been engaging in a personal project recently to get all my OLD wordpress sites upgraded to 2.6 and on the latest versions of plugins and such. This has helped me notice that there are things I’d like to do with the software that it doesn’t do by itself, either because of 3rd party services or for SEO reasons.

One thing: I wouldn’t create a new WP site without the amazing K2 theme. Just get it. You’ll thank me later. No price tag, just CSS and some awesome AJAX, plus plugin integration and an alternate sidebar manager. The theme that kicks WordPress into high gear.

Here are 10 plugins I probably wouldn’t deploy wordpress without:

FeedBurner FeedSmith - If you use FB, this is a no-brainer
Flare Smith - Eric Marden’s excellent FeedBurner stats and FeedFlare plugin. No more copy and pasting javascript
K2 Hook Up - Every site has those couple of places where you need to paste some javascript for tracking or ads, and K2 provides hooks into all of them. This plugin exposes those to blog admins. Another Xentek creation.
Related Posts - I don’t think this is in active development anymore. I have no complaints, though. A great reason to have K2 and K2 Hook Up.
Landing Sites - Let’s get real. Not all visitors hit your site from the home page. When people reach your site via a search engine, this plugin helps you display some helpful pointers to what they might have ACTUALLY been looking for. Useful for very old blog posts. Another great reason for K2 Hook Up.
All in One SEO - This is a very recent addition to my list, but something that is sorely needed if you pay attention to your Google Webmaster reports, and you’re concerned about how your blog shows up in SERPs (when it shows up in search engines). This plugin is actually pretty brainless, but powerful at the same time.
Google XML Sitemap - Again with this one, as soon as I started paying attention to Webmaster Tools, the sitemap stuff was jumping out at me, and I felt the need to address it.
Secure Accessible Contact Form - Websites don’t exist without contact forms. That’s a statement. However, spam and usability can get in the way. This plugin leaves nothing to the imagination, and apparently it’s blocked 17 spam on this blog. Go team.
FeedWordPress - For planet-style sites or other syndicated sites, this plugin has tons of options but works pretty well out of the box. Integrates with your built-in Blogroll and Categories, too. As I remember, installation is gummy, but this plugin is still an essential part of my toolkit.
Akismet - I would have stopped blogging a long time ago if I had to put up with the thousands of spam comments I get on a weekly basis. Wordpress must be an easy target, because the spam rolls in, and it never stops. Ever. Install this plugin no matter what. Requires an API Key from Wordpress.com

This is not an exhaustive list of every plugin I use or endorse, just 10 you should know about, or some that are too essential to pass by.

Honorable mention goes to the built-in WP Widgets - without those babies, life would be hard. K2’s sidebar manager actually approaches a new level of sophistication with widgets, and I often wish I were running K2 on this site. Either way, you’re getting the chance to display lots of dynamic stuff that lives near the content, without needing to be the content itself.

Lately I’m a Drupal guy, but I still think WordPress has its place in my day-to-day, especially for a blog like this, or when you miss the days of 5-minute setups.

These plugins all (except FeedWordPress) get first priority on every WordPress site I configure for myself, clients or friends. I have donated to several of these developers’ tip jars, and I hope that by writing this post, I can do something just as good as loose change in the virtual hat.

Links for 2008-11-17 [ma.gnolia]

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600

Search config | drupal.org

This module started out as a simple means of configuring the display of the advance search form. A few features have been added since thanks to the contributions of others. There is also the option of selecting which node types not to index. This gives more control over the content that can be searched to those who need it.

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Tags: drupal, modules, search, configuration, advanced, forms, index

Links for 2008-11-15 [ma.gnolia]

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600

CWP Certification Tracks - International Webmasters Association

A CWP Site Designer implements and maintains Web sites using authoring and scripting languages, content creation and management tools, and digital media. A CWP Internetworking Specialist defines network architecture, identifies infrastructure components, monitors and analyzes network performance. This individual also designs and manages TCP/IP networks. A CWP Enterprise Developer builds n-tier database and legacy connectivity solutions for Web applications, using Java, Java application programming interfaces (APIs), Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) solutions, middleware tools, and distributed object models. A CWP E-Commerce Specialist is expert in standards, technologies and practices in electronic commerce. Understand and manage the relationships among credit cardholders, issuers, merchants, acquirers, payment gateways and third parties. Understands the uses of Secure Electronic Transactions (SET), cryptography standards, Certificate Authorities, and electronic services. A CWP Security Specialist implements security policy, identifies security threats and develops countermeasures using firewalls and attack-recognition technologies. This individual is expert in transaction and payment security solutions. A CWP Server Administrator manages and tunes E-Commerce infrastructure including Web servers, FTP, news, and mail servers for mid-size to large businesses. Server administrators configure, manage and deploy e-business solutions servers. A CWP Application Developer builds client- and server-side Web applications using Rapid Application Development tools and component technologies to implement two-tier database connectivity solutions.

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Tags: developer, certification, association, web, services, professional

Links for 2008-11-14 [ma.gnolia]

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600

Recruiting and Jobs in Orlando Area: Workforce Central Florida

In the Orlando MSA four-county area there are 1,058,107 employed and 72,724 unemployed residents as of September 2008. There are 26,838 more people unemployed in September 2008 than one year ago in Central Florida.

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Tags: floridacreatives, digital media, dmaf, orlando, jobs

Sesame Street Idols [Flickr]

Liberatr.net — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:08:20 -0600

Liberatr.net posted a photo:

Mariah and I at Orlando Puppet Festival with Fran Brill (Prarie Dawn and Zoe from Sesame Street).

Hey Sexy [Flickr]

Liberatr.net — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:49:07 -0600

Liberatr.net posted a photo:

Can I Have Ya Digits?

Blacksonville at BarCamp Tampa [Flickr]

Liberatr.net — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:17:36 -0600

Liberatr.net posted a video:

Blacksonville is a social networking group for African Americans in North East Florida as well as a business directory. Christian, one of the founders, gives us more details at BarCamp in Tampa at the USF school of Business.

A New Identity Costs $20 (at iStockPhoto, at least)

rprice@ryanpricemedia.com (Liberatr.net) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 14:53:58 +0000

Given my new employment situation, I need to have a new identity. After a couple of hours of cruising a stock illustration library, a couple of clicks in an open-source image editor, and an edit from a friend, we have a product:

I may yet try to work in the statement “Drupal? Easy.”, but this was the version I saved out for the web. I’m sure you’ll all get to see the paper copy one of these days.

Smart Mailbox Formula: Flagged Messages

rprice@ryanpricemedia.com (Liberatr.net) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:34:04 +0000

One very simple way to keep your email organized is by using flags in Apple’s Mail program. If you’re like me, you are pulling in most, if not all, of your messages from a GMail or a Google Apps account. This means that your “starred” items in your Google Mail will also be “flagged” once they get to your Mac.

Flagging messages in Mail.app can be done via the menu Message > Mark > As Flagged, or by simply pressing Command-Shift-L when you have selected the message(s) you would like to flag.

Creating a Smart Mailbox is very simple. Just choose the menu item Mailbox > New Smart Mailbox…

At this point, you be presented with a popup box asking you for a Smart Mailbox Name, and several options. The first line of options reads:
Contains messages that match all of the following conditions:
You can also match TODO items, or ANY of the following conditions. For this example, we will leave this line alone.

The first condition by default matches the “From” email address of any messages. This is what we want to change:

Click on the select box for “From”, and choose Message is Flagged from the list. The other options in this condition will disappear.

This Smart Mailbox is already pretty useful, but our Flagged messages from several months ago probably aren’t too useful any more, so we’ll add another rule. Click on the plus to the right of the popup box to add a new condition.

When you are finished creating this new rule, the second line should read:
Date Recieved is in the last 60 Days
Before you press OK, take a seecond to admire your work. You’re being smart with your email.

After you OK the creation of the new Smart Mailbox, a new “Flagged” item appears in the left sidebar of your Mail window with a little purple icon. If you don’t see it, click the words SMART MAILBOXES until the arrow to the left of the words is pointing down, and your Smart Mailbox should appear.

All of your flagged messages from the last 60 days are in this smart mailbox, but they have not been moved from their home in your other mailboxes either. If you remove the flag from a message with Command-Shift-L, the message will no longer appear here.

While this is all great, I did notice one annoying thing: Since all my mail is coming in from a GMail server, several of the messages in this folder were duplicates, because they also appear in GMail’s “Starred” folder. In order to fix this problem. I selected my Smart Mailbox, and then chose the menu item Mailbox > Edit Smart Mailbox…

Once you’re editing again, just add a rule that reads as follows:
Message is in Mailbox: Inbox
After you OK this change all your duplicate GMail messages should disappear.

If you’ve got a Smart Mailbox Formula that helps you wade through the ocean of information we all seem to be swimming in these days, please share it in the comments below. I’m sure we could all use a little bit of help.