Jason Schwanz dot com » Web

Tweet Benefits

JASon — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 02:50:03 +0000

@timage bloged today about Figuring Out The Benefits Of Twitter. Here’s what he has to say about how Twitter can add value:

Like I said earlier, there are more things to post on twitter than your current status. I’ve read post links to all kinds of interesting articles. I’ve seen people ask questions. I’ve seen people provide answers. People share what’s going on at events in real time. One thing I learned early on is that some folks are only interested in trying to get something from others on Twitter. But there are quite a few people who are there to add value to others. In doing so, they find that there is value added to them. I’m trying to be one of the voices on Twitter that adds something meaningful and fun to the conversation.

So, if you have been wondering about Twitter, give his post a read. Once you sign up you can find me @jschwanz.

Where Have I Been

JASon — Fri, 04 May 2007 22:53:09 +0000

I’ve been busy recently, and haven’t been blogging much (obviously). You may be wondering what I’ve been up to. Well, this is what I’ve been working on. In case that doesn’t quite make sense, I’ve been working on a web redesign for the Yearly Meeting. It’s not completely done yet, but we’ve gone live with it.

My Afternoon

JASon — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 04:44:24 +0000

This is what we did this afternoon.

Picking Colors

JASon — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 03:34:19 +0000

When doing any kind of web design the hardest thing for me to do is decide on the colors to use. I tend to fall into my typical color schemes, most specifically the navy and red of the Red Sox. However, I’ve now got a new (to me) tool in my toolbox. I was working on a new WordPress theme, and going through my color troubles when my wife sent me the link to ColorCombos.com. At present they have 212 color pallet combinations, complete with the HEX codes for implementing these colors online. My job at picking colors just got a whole lot easier!

[tags]CSS, web design[/tags]

Office Software on the Go

JASon — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 19:04:27 +0000

If you are like me (and I know everyone is) you are curious about the reality of scrapping your expensive Microsoft Office software in favor of the free, online options that are cropping up these days…dubbed Office 2.0. This webpage has the most extensive listing of web-based software options, organized into categories, comparing the features and capabilities of each service. I look forward to playing around with them.

[tags]Web 2.0, Office 2.0[/tags]

Good Buildup

JASon — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 04:39:18 +0000

There are times when buildup is a bad thing, like when you have a buildup of that film on your teeth. I, on the other hand, have a good buildup of links that I need to pass along to you all.

Get your Star Wars geek on with this video clip. Via GVOD.
Do you miss your Commodore 64? You can now play all of those games online.
Have you ever wondered what you can do with RSS feeds, beside syndicate news headlines? This site will help you with 12 other possible uses.
Are you tired of not having a mouse with your laptop when you are away from your desk? The MoGo Mouse might be your solution. Bluetooth required for use.
Do you want to learn how to do some of those fun Ajax web tricks? Let script.aculo.us be your guide.
Windoze users, are you tired of having to dig through your start menu to open applications? Colibri is an application launcher that lets you launch your applications just by typing the name of it. I’ve installed this at work, and it’s coming in very handy. Definitely worth a look.

If you want to see all that I have in my del.icio.us bookmarks check it out.

[tags]Star Wars, c64, rss, MoGo Mouse, script.aculo.us, Colibri[/tags]

@43 u 1337?

JASon — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 00:34:38 +0000

Are you leet, is what I was asking. Leet is short for “elite”, and leetspeak is taking words and replacing them with characters and numbers. An example would be /\/\1cr0$()ft.

I saw a new online aggregator, “the best online aggregator ever…”, a day or two ago which is what prompted me to give the short lesson in 13375p34k. t3h Blox0r is pretty slick. It gives a desktop aggregator feel right in your Gecko-based web browser. That’s right, this website only works with web browsers that use the Gecko engine, such as Firefox or Seamonkey (formerly Mozilla Application Suite). I’m just starting to play around with it. I think this look the most promising out of all the other non-Bloglines feeds I’ve tried.

[tags]Bloxor, feed, rss, aggregator[/tags]

Tasty WordPress Links

JASon — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 01:59:14 +0000

I’ve decided that I should pass along some links to my favorite things when it comes to WordPress.

Alex King hosted a competition for themes. He also setup a handy browser so you can see a demo of each theme.
Comment spam is a nasty thing. I originally used a captcha based spam blocker (where you have to type in the text from a funny looking image), but have since changed to something more discrete: Spam Karma 2.0. The goal of SK2 is to “stop all forms of automated Blog spam effortlessly, while remaining as unobtrusive as possible to regular commenters.”
If you are an AdSense user, this plugin may be what you are looking for.
If you use Google Analytics for site statistics, this plugin will add the necessary code without needing to hack up your templates.
This blog is all about blogging. Topics covered range from general blogging topics, to specific WordPress themes and plugins. There is also a post of his favorite WordPress plugins.
This site has an extensive list of WordPress plugins.

You can see my WordPress del.icio.us bookmarks here.

What are your favorite WordPress links?

Desktop Anywhere

JASon — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 06:30:31 +0000

I’ve heard a lot of buzz surrounding web2.0 lately, but I think I finally have seen it. EyeOS is a browser-based operating system. I haven’t played with it much, but this is very cool, and I look forward to installing it on my server at home and playing around with it. It’s still in beta (version 0.8.7 is the current release) but it seems nice already. There are a couple of demo sites up, so go check it out.

Linky Love

How Do You Feed?

JASon — Sat, 17 Dec 2005 18:00:33 +0000

As I mentioned earlier, Bloglines has pretty sucky recently. I’ve been looking to try out some other web-based RSS feed readers in hopes of finding something better.

A while back I talked (briefly) about Pluck. I looked into it again this evening, and there was something about the interface that I just couldn’t get into. I dunno what it was. Pluck has the potential to be cool . . . maybe

I imported all of my Bloglines feeds into Google Reader when they first released it, but that interface is lacking as well. The one major feature they are missing is a “Mark All Read” option. I think I would also prefer my unread feeds clustered by labels (Google’s version of del.icio.us style tags) rather than just a straight list of unread feeds. I do like the ease of marking important posts with a star. And of course, since it is Google, GReader is in beta

I’m looking for some suggestions. What web-based RSS feed reader do you use, and what makes it better then the others? I already got an email vote for Rojo, but I’d love to hear why I should give Rojo a try.