Comment Notification Via Twitter
How do you receive notification that a new comment has been posted on your blog? Email? RSS? Or do you just login and see if any new comments are pending?
Now, thanks to Tyler, you can get notifications via Twitter. The wpCommentTwit plug-in will send you a direct message whenever a comment is made on one of your posts, along with the URL to the post.
You will need to create a second Twitter account that sends you the DM, however, as Twitter doesn’t allow you to send direct messages to yourself. However, if you just create the secondary account, and make it’s tweets private (requiring permission to receive them), simply add your main Twitter account to the secondary, and call it done.
Your secondary account will have exactly one follower, and it’ll send notifications of all of your received comments.
If you’re like most Twitter users, you have it up and running all day, anyway, so why not get it to notify you of any new comments?
Definitely a cool plug-in.
Filed Under twitterGetting Paid To Twitter (Sort Of)
Courtesy of Steve Rubel comes news of Adjix, a service similar to URL shortener TinyURL, but it doubles as an ad network. The Adjix links that you drop into your tweets have a small ad frame around them, and you get paid for both views and clicks. A dime for every 1000 unique views, and double that if someone clicks through.
But while that might make some money for those with massive numbers of followers, Twitter users such as myself, with only 300 or so followers aren’t probably going to be bringing in the bucks.
You get to choose your ad category if you’re an advertiser, and those creating the links get to do the same.
When I first read this last night, I thought, "Someone’s finally found a way to monetize on Twitter, but it may not be the Holy Grail. If an ad box starts appearing around the links in your tweets, rest assured, you’ll probably lose a few followers, as, according to Steve, "…I don’t see any way for the user to opt in or out of certain advertisers. So beware that you have almost no control here."
It sounds like an interesting concept, and while it’d certainly be cool to make money from Twitter, I don’t think that this is the way that I’ll be trying to accomplish it.
Filed Under twitterNever Take The Campsite Next To The Playground
On my second week of holidays, we decided to go somewhere a little warmer than the Cariboo region of BC, which, while nice, was a little unpredictable in the weather department. Usually the Okanagan turns out to be a better choice, and that turned out to be the case here, as you’ll see.
It was raining when we left Vancouver, and it seemed like the storm was going to follow us all the way to the Interior, we had a decision to make. Where was the driest place in BC? Seeing as how it’s located in the only arid desert in Canada, Osoyoos seemed to be logical choice, so that’s where we decided to go.
By the time we got there, and checked into the motel for the first night, the storm had been left behind, never to reach Osoyoos. I decided to take a walk down to the beach, and was more than a little surprised by the wind coming off of the lake. I expected to see a reporter from CNN standing on the shore talking about the coming hurricane, but, was out of luck. I’m willing to bet that the windsurfer above had a pretty good time, though.
After the first night it was off to find a camping spot, and at the Brookvale Campground, we were able to find one right on the beach. Literally. Sleeping on the sand is a whole lot softer than sleeping on the root of a tree, believe me.
We even had guests for breakfast and dinner each day. Small, brown, feathered guests.
A few days later, though, the campsite was going to be full of reserved spots, so we had to move on, and Penticton was the destination. After we arrived, we checked out a few spots, but decided that $40 a night just for tenting was too much to pay, so we found the South Beach Gardens RV Park, which also had tenting sites, for a little less and settled in.
That’s where the title of this post comes from. They put us right next to the playground, and to be honest, the site itself was the biggest one I’ve ever seen. Our site itself was bigger than our backyard. However, the location was a real drawback. The playground was open till 10pm (!) and you could forget even trying to get to sleep until it was closed and locked. Funny, but I don’t remember nine year old girls screaming that *loud* when I was a kid. We went to the office and requested another site the on the second morning, and literally threw everything into the car and drove to the other end of the campground.
After we got set up in the new location, we were shocked at just how quiet the place was. Guess we’ll know for next time. Incidentally, the morning that we were packing up to go home, another family carried their fully raised tent through the campground and dropped it in the site next to ours. I kind of wondered, so I asked if they had moved from campsite L3, which was the one we had been in. Turns out that they got stuck with it after we did, and they demanded to move to.
Other than that, though, there was nothing wrong with the campground itself. I think there were more Alberta license plates there than BC ones, but there’s nothing wrong with that.
But if we learned nothing else from this trip, the number one lesson was, never take the campsite right next to the playground.
Filed Under MiscellaneousA (Somewhat) Universal Inbox
I’m sure that there’ll be some people reading this who will figure that I’m a bit slow for not having done this sooner, but seeing as how all of my domains use Google Apps to manage the email, I went into the settings for each account and had them all forward on to one specific address, making the daily email run a little simpler.
Once mail starts coming in to the catch-all address, I’ll start applying filters so that the amount of mail that I absolutely *have* to read. I realized that I hadn’t been checking all of them regularly, and I’m a little surprised at the amount of spam that got through Google’s filters. No matter, though, I’ll just mark the stuff as spam and it’ll be gone for good.
Now if I could just find something that would forward voice mail from my cell to this same inbox, I’d be really happy.
Filed Under GooglePage Rank Is A Weird Thing
This morning Tyler was telling me about his ongoing PR issues with Google, and I decided to check the page rank score for rodtempleton.net for the first time in about 4 months.. Turns out that it’s back up to 4 after sinking as low as 2 not too long ago. This got me to thinking.
Over the last little while, Tyler’s been a lot more active with his posting than I have, and yet my PR goes up, while his goes into the tank. But if you search my name in Google, 8 of the 10 results on the first page relate to me (only #3 and #6 aren’t links to me - gotta get working on that). And it’s been that way for years - good search results in Google, and lousy Page Rank.
It kind of makes me wonder if PR is the thing that bloggers should be chasing. Seriously, if every result on the first page relates to quality content that you’ve provided, does it even matter what the page rank for the site is? The only thing I ever use the Google Toolbar for is to check my own PR, and that’s only 3 or 4 times per year. I don’t use it to check other sites, and a PR of 1 or 2 isn’t going to make me doubt the information on a site if I find it useful.
It’s sort of like the Technorati craze a year or two ago where the only thing that mattered was getting into the top 10,000 and then then the top 1000, and finally the top 100. It doesn’t matter what your score is if you’ve got crap content.
I’m sure that PR plays a part in Google’s search results somehow, but if it does, they’re obviously not going to explain exactly how, and I wouldn’t expect them to.
But I just don’t think that PR is holy grail that bloggers should be chasing.
If you think I’m wrong, please tell me.
Filed Under GoogleA Few Things Before I Go
I’m on vacation next week (until August 5th, actually) so I wouldn’t expect a whole lot of posting anywhere until then. Unless I can get to an internet café somewhere, and I’m not even really sure I’d post anything even if I could. Vacation is a break from work *and* the usual routine.
In the meantime, have a look at the Flickr photos, the del.icio.us links, or the GR shared links that are all listed in the header up there.
And if that’s not enough, I’ve come across a few posts in the last day or so that I thought I’d mention in case you needed anything else to peruse.
- Buzz Bishop almost got caught by the Cult of Mom. It’s a funny post, but the frightening thing is that it’s ALL TRUE.
- John Biehler posted his thoughts on his new Microsoft Zune. The conclusion? Some good, some bad, and some things that Apple could learn from Redmond.
- Tyler went and bought himself a new toy. A toy that takes some very cool photos.
Okay, so it’s not a huge linkfest or anything. That’s about it for me. See y’all in 10 days or so.
Filed Under MiscellaneousWhat Tech Do You Take On Vacation?
Seeing as how I’m going to be away next week, I thought I’d post about the tech stuff that I take with me when I’m on holidays. Being the sort who doesn’t own a laptop, I’m not sure I’d take it with me even if I did. Sometimes it’s good to take a break from the net.
Be warned that if there was any doubt in your mind that I’m not a geek, it’ll probably be erased after reading this list. So, in no particular order, the tech backpack gets filled with:
- Olympus E-10, 4 megapixel digital camera with a 1GB CF card. Images will go up on Flickr after my return.
- Icom T2H, 2m portable ham radio, with an Icom EM46 speaker mic, and a quarter-wave mag mount antenna. Cell coverage is non existent where I’m headed (grid square CO91) and for a fair bit of the drive as well, so it’s good to have access to emergency communications if necessary. I might also get a yagi antenna and see if I can do some satellite work.
- Realistic DX-360 - my old DX-440 shortwave radio is rather expensive to keep feeding batteries to, so I’m just taking the smaller 360 this time. Considering the destination, both shortwave and broadcast band (AM) should be fun, as it’ll be nice and quiet (no electricity where I’m headed).
What do you need to take on vacation, tech wise?
Filed Under MiscellaneousEvening Trip to Alouette Lake
Last night we decided to take a drive out to Alouette Lake in Maple Ridge, hoping that it wouldn’t be too crowded, as we were in the mood for a little peace and quiet.
As it turns out, it wasn’t busy at all, considering how hot the weather’s been lately. There weren’t even a whole lot of boats out on the lake, which really surprised me - usually it’s full of boats at this time of year, but there were just a couple, along with three or four jet skis.
Credit: rodtempleton on Flickr
The one beef that I had with the whole thing last night was the parking. Not that it’s pay parking - I’m resigned to that. Essentially the pay parking works out to $1 for the first hour, $2 for two hours, or $3 for all day. It was already 6:30, so we weren’t going to be all that long, but probably more than an hour, so I decided to pay for two.
The ticket machine is one of the older style ones were you put the money into the coin slots, push the lever in, and it spits out your ticket. There were slots for three loonies, or a loonie and a two dollar coin.
I put the twonie in, and pushed the lever. Nothing happened. Tried putting two loons in. Nothing. I hoped the answer wasn’t what I thought it was. I put a twonie and a loon in. That worked just fine. So essentially they’re saying that you’re going to pay the full day rate regardless of how long you’re going to stay. Not cool. I don’t remember if there was a phone number on the machine or not, but it wouldn’t have mattered much, because I don’t have cell service in the park anyway.
It’s like those great parking machines that BC Ferries put in that don’t give change. If you pay your $10 parking fee with a $20, you’ve just tipped them 10 bucks. Except this was like a machine that claimed, “Parking is 50 cents, but the machine doesn’t take coins, and doesn’t make change.”
Yeah, I know, it’s only a buck, but considering the number of people that visit Alouette Lake on a daily basis, it sure works out to a nice little profit for them.
Just something to be aware of. By all means, go to the park, it’s a great time. But make sure you don’t leave your change at home.
You’re going to need it.
Filed Under MiscellaneousiPhone Issues in Western Canada
No matter what happens with the release of the 3G iPhone today, some people are going to be happy, and some are going to be pissed off. It’s just the way it works. People at the Rogers flagship store in Toronto were a little less than thrilled to find out that the store only had 80 phones in stock. When the line is a couple of hundred people long, though, it’s not hard to figure out why.
To be honest, though, this isn’t really a new occurrence. I’d be willing to bet that by Monday or Tuesday you’ll be able to walk into any Rogers retailer in the country and pick up a 3G iPhone.
Regardless, though, it doesn’t sound like Rogers had a good morning. Their activation system went down (at least in the west) and customers were forced to stand around with their new purchase waiting for the system to come back up so that they could activate their new phone. Would have been a rough morning for the sales reps, without a doubt. I wonder if the problems seemed worse out west because those in the east were in the process of getting their phones activated as well and the whole country just overwhelmed the system.
If you’re looking for more updates on the whole thing, have a look at Buzz Bishop’s Cyberbuzz post, which seems to get updated when he gets new information on the whole thing.
Filed Under AppleWorking On A New Theme
Anyone who’s been a regular follower of this blog over the years knows that I have a tendency to change themes at the drop of a hat. Something in a different theme will catch my eye and I’ll install that theme for awhile until one comes along with something else that’s "better".
I’m constantly telling Tyler that I don’t even think that I could go to a designer to get a custom one done because I don’t think that I could accurately describe to them what it is that I want. I have the design in my head, but I just can’t put it into words. Yeah, I’d be one of those customers from hell that web designers love *so* much. I don’t want to be, but I know that I would.
So, I’ve downloaded the Sandbox theme for Wordpress and I’m going to go to work on it, trying to design a theme that I’d be happy with. You won’t see much in changes around here for awhile, though, as I have a ’sandbox’ installation on both my home and work machines that allow me to test there before I go live with anything. This is something that I’ve done for a couple of years now, and even blogged about it before.
If nothing else, it’ll help me work on my CSS and PHP skills, too, so that won’t be a bad thing.
Filed Under Blog-
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