Fortune Telling
by patndoris on Sep.27, 2009, under Musings
I know, I know…the fortunes you get out of those nice little baked shortbread-ish cookies from the Chinese take out place aren’t really real fortunes. But still, every once in awhile, they do have something good in them. So here you go, here are my two most recent fortunes:
Previously, I received this one:
Character is who you are when no one is watching.
And last night, this one was bestowed upon me (which I rather like):
Your love life will be happy and harmonious.
I dunno if I like the iPhone
by patndoris on Sep.18, 2009, under Musings
While I was in Las Vegas last week, I was unfortunate enough to lose my cell phone. Sadly, the phone I had was no longer sold at the local AT&T store (even though I just got one for the male offspring 6 weeks ago) and I had to make another choice. I steadfastly maintained I would not get an iPhone. I didn’t want one. I didn’t need one. I saw no purpose in it. However, after much discussion back and forth with the nice salesman at the store - it was determined I could get the lowest price iPhone for $99, no hassle of mail in rebate, he’d waive the upgrade fee since I’d lost my other phone, and it would only be $15 more per month. (Yes, I had a lot of bells and whistles on the account to start with.)
I did have to forego my mobile TV in this deal, but I suppose I’m relatively happy I did. I can honestly say I’m enjoying the apps for the phone. I paid for Scrabble straight away, as well as Bejeweled 2. Then I set off in search of way too many free apps. My rising favorite (right after Facebook and Tweetdeck which keep me in touch with my recently blocked at work sites) is Kindle for the iPhone (from Amazon). I’ve downloaded about 35 free books and can read them at my leisure. I’m not sure if the free books were limited time or not - but I’ve certainly taken advantage of them that’s for sure!!
I’m still struggling with the touch sensitive screen. I can’t use my nails to type like I’m used to. It is definitely frustrating, but all in all I’m reasonably happy and adjusting well. The phone I got does not have video, voice command or a huge amount of storage - but at least for now I think it’s quite sufficient to meet my needs. I’ll keep you posted on how the texting comes along as I get more used to the keyboard. Until then, if we are texting back and forth - expect me to be slooooow since I have to backspace a lot.
Bare your Soul
by patndoris on Aug.30, 2009, under Websites
Do you ever envy those who seem to be able to rant and rave and post every little detail of what bothers them? They don’t care who sees it, what ramifications it holds, or how it’s perceived. In general, I don’t follow many blogs that are carried out in this manner, but I do feel a little twinge of something when I do happen to stop on one. How liberating it must be to be able to spill forth what’s really in your head…I simply don’t DO that. (Really, the small glimpse you get inside my head here, in this blog, is more than enough to show my brain is a scary, scary place.)
A few months ago, I found an interesting site. Soulcast is uncensored anonymous blogging. It’s still tagged as a beta, but it is a very interesting concept. It’s intriguing to see what people say when there aren’t so many rules. Soulcast is about raw, free form blogging, not images and not videos. Users can link to other pages with video or images, but the posts themselves are all about the words and what flows from the mind. It runs the gamut from the mundane, to what some readers might find offensive. It is definitely not a site for children (users must be at least 13 years old.) There are lots of posts with explicit and graphic language. But there are also plenty of posts that are suitable for anyone to read and/or follow.
To be fair, Soulcast does have a complete Terms of Use as well as a Privacy Policy. They do not in any way condone illegal activities, copyright violations, etc. If you are going to sign up be sure to read these pages. But there is no "Big Brother" mentality. They do not track IP addresses, or log information. From their help page: "The only information that we will make available if required by law is what’s already public on our website, such as the username and blog content." And, unless content is such that Soulcast might be considered legally liable, they will not censor what you write.
I did sign up there a couple of months ago. I’ve posted just a handful of times. Admittedly, I think I am still more reserved than many when I write, but it’s a step in the "cutting loose" direction for me. There is something liberating about putting it out there. Have I received lots of feedback from their community of readers? Nope. But then again, I don’t really care. It’s more about me being able to express myself than it is me looking for any suggestions or answers. Sometimes just by opening up we find our own way in things.
So, if you have an interest in a place where you can just let it all hang out, where you can write and not be judged or censored, Soulcast may be a welcome addition to your blogging routine. I think of it as a nice fall back. I know it’s there if I need to rant. And free is a lot cheaper than therapy LOL! But I also don’t feel compelled to write there all the time. I’m happy to have my own blog. But there are times when perhaps saying something "off the official record" is the best choice. That is when I find the site useful for me.
Emergency Flashers
by patndoris on Aug.14, 2009, under Jokes
And now for the joke of the….wow…it’s been a long time since I posted anything hasn’t it? OK…how about…and now for a joke -
I had a flat tire on the interstate, so I eased my car over to the shoulder of the road, carefully got out of the car and opened the trunk. I took out 2 cardboard men, unfolded them and stood them at the rear of my car facing oncoming traffic. They look so life like you wouldn’t believe it! They are in trench coats exposing their nude bodies to the approaching drivers.
To my surprise, cars start slowing down looking at my lifelike men which made it safer for me to work at the side of the road. And of course, traffic starts backing up. Everybody is tooting their horns and waving like crazy. It wasn’t long before a state trooper pulls up behind me. He gets out of his car and starts walking towards me. I could tell he was not a happy camper!
‘What’s going on here?’
‘My car has a flat tire ‘, I said calmly.
‘Well, what are those obscene cardboard men doing here by the road?’
I couldn’t believe that he didn’t know..So I told him,
‘Helloooooo, those are my Emergency Flashers.’
"Embrace the Medium"
by patndoris on Jul.24, 2009, under Musings
"What does it mean, exactly, to “embrace the medium"? Apparently, it means a compulsive dedication to what essentially amounts to busy work: checking in with your followers or friends repeatedly and often, authoring bursts of quasi-communiqués at all hours of the day, continually updating your statuses, tending a limitless onslaught of friend requests, managing an unyielding firehose of housekeeping tasks. It just means spending a lot of time just wasting time. And not just that, but it also means creating all of this busy work for other people, too; creating or updating or inputting more stuff for everyone to read - or more accurately, for everyone to feel they have to keep up with. We’re all blindsiding ourselves and one another with trivial obligations."
- Ben Brown, Subtraction.com: A Good Day’s Busy Work via nickdouglas via something changed
Lemmings, Mass Movements and Facebook
by patndoris on Jul.18, 2009, under Musings
I read an interesting quote recently about why people either embrace or abstain from Facebook. In my typical, and often convoluted way - it reminded me of lemmings, of mass movements and social hysteria - breeding not uniqueness, but instead, reducing us to clone-like conformity with one another.
Take a look at the basic premise - most of us crave an audience. In fact, by adding contacts and making our profiles public we actively seek them out - we create one if it doesn’t exist. We eagerly upload statuses and photos from our mobile phones. We hurry to tell the world what we are doing, what we like, what we don’t. We take quizzes to see just how much we are alike or different from everyone else. We rate. We write. We rant. We don’t do it so much to "keep in touch" as to enthrall the ever present audience we believe is hanging on to our every move. Certainly, the information we are providing about us is far more interesting than that anyone else is posting to the same pool of people. We are unique right? We are different. We are intriguing. We are special! We perform - and we love every moment of it.
But some people avoid such sites like the plague. The general perception is they don’t want to share personal information. Perhaps in some cases it is true. But is it more than that? Maybe it is not the fear or concern of exposure of the personal, but the fear that doing so will illuminate the reality - they are just like everyone else. The performance, no matter how brilliant it is, will not likely render them unique. By abstaining from such sites, they can maintain the illusion. They won’t melt into the sea of sameness with the rest of the masses. Is this being anti-social? Or is it self preservation?
As time has progressed, we have gone from using our vocal chords to communicate, to the backlit keys on our mobile phones. Rather than taking center stage with our loud and ringing voice as we tell our tales, we now exist in the Feed and on the Wall. We live in a two dimensional pixilated era where we can instantly gratify those who we are surely our devoted followers. But do we deceive ourselves? Only the few truly set themselves apart. Has the mass movement towards social networking on the internet begun the downfall and destruction of individuality? Are we all like lemmings, about to jump en masse off the cliff and into the sea? Oh well, my thought process on this (such as it was) is rapidly deteriorating - I think it’s time to check my Facebook feed and update my status. I like social networking - and I for one am not about to abstain from anything anytime soon.
Kaspersky GSI
by patndoris on Jul.09, 2009, under Security/Cleanup
Just a quickie post for those who enjoy investigating their machines.
Detect Incompatible Software, Malware Infection and Program Errors with Kaspersky GSI
I read the above blog post on Raymond.CC blog and bookmarked to go back to later. Well, later was today. I gotta tell you I’m rather impressed with the speed and amount of data this nifty little bugger generates. It’s pretty darn simple and it does provide some quick down and dirty info about your system. Take the time to run it, and upload the results to the parser (links are in the Raymond.CC post) and tell me what you think of this.
The GSI technically stands for "Get System Info" but they should consider "Gotta See It" because this is a nice little application.
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