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Question our trustworthy (and conversational) FriendFeed community with your questions/problems and get some answers! Think of it as the Social Media version of Yahoo! Answers. Now stop reading and go ask (or answer) some questions!
JA Castillo (جاسون)
So, is it something to consider for an office of 10 - 12 to use Gmail as the primary mail system or just a bunch of hooey? Gmail would offer us more individual storage and wholly better web interface than the one offered by our provider. Outlook would still be used in office to pull down messages.
Sure why not and it's free. You could also use Gtalk to IM everyone. I wonder if Google Wave will be free? - Kol Tregaskes
It's a great idea. Works very well. :) - felix
just be careful that you are storing company email with potentially sensitive data with a third party that is known to data mine them and offer ads to you. The question I'd ask is do you have windows SBS that comes with exchange, if you do then I'd recommend that over any third party as your number one option. - alphaxion
@alphaxion - no, we are a small architecture office w/o the use of Exchange or SBS. Currently, our email is pulled down and held locally to each workstation. There are no in-place back-up procedures for that information and w/ Gmail, we get instant message legacy. - JA Castillo (جاسون)
I'd just keep in mind that you're placing your email in the hands of someone else. Maybe set up a zimbra server and an alternative? - alphaxion
JA Castillo (جاسون)
Is there any way to wholesale change multiple calendar items in GCal? I ran the GCal / Outlook Calendar sync tool and calendar items in my office Outlook arrived OK, but they all dropped in under my "personal" calendar. I wanted them in my "work" calendar. Ugh...
ugh. I had nothing but trouble with the GCal/Outlook Calendar sync. - holly
Anyone with any good tools for this? Items in Outlook transfer to GCal fine, but not into the appropriate (work) calendar; thus my initial post. Things are further complicated if I manipulate things in GCal (setting to the correct calendar or shuffling a block of time, etc). With the next sync...items in Outlook get erased and things end up getting duplicated on my Pre. Annoying, indeed... - JA Castillo (جاسون)
Jannifer Stoddard
QUESTION: What do you do to get UN-stuck when you're stuck in an area of your life, (especially related to work or business)??
I think it depends on how I'm stuck. Envisioning where I want to be is a good first step, then thinking about what blockers I have or what is holding me back from getting there. Then it really depends on where I want to be and what is holding me back. - joey
Go outside and 'play" - ( play sports, run/walk, hike, tennis, swim or whatever to get my mind away from it). Usually the answer of 'what should I do next comes?'- when I am not banging my head against it - Tracy Benham
When I feel really stuck, I take a class at the local community college. Don't know that it helps directly, but 16 weeks later, things are usually moving better. - Marty
From Zenhabits.net: "The first step is allowing yourself to not care and being honest with what you do care about it. That’s where most people get stuck. A lot of people spend their lives working on things they don’t care about." - manielse
Lots of wisdom you all have there. I get overwhelmed by things I think are hindering my progress and then I develop this inertia and stay stuck. For instance - I view or see being an introvert as a huge hindrance to my particular type of business, so although I do things "out-of-the-box", I get discouraged when I see other people have such an easy breezy time who are more outgoing, so then I will think I won't also be able to reach my dreams since I'm not like them. - Jannifer Stoddard
I exercise hardcore, so I can clear my mind. - Shevonne
Slam my head into it until something gives - MiniMage (FakeLifePerson)
I get discouraged when I see others stealing my ideas or content and then they take it and have great success. I get tired of monitoring that, fighting against that, etc... Wears me out. It's like going round and round with hard work, others capitalizing on my hard work, I fight it, then analyzing things to death, then getting discouraged, then inertia, then clouded and stuck... - Jannifer Stoddard
Jannifer: Assuming you are talking about your online business. The internet is a powerful place for Introverts. Use the social networks as your tool, your friend. The internet is also like you said a vicious place to compete. GaryVee is fighting hard, you need to fight harder or smarter than your competitors. That can be draining but it's the nature of business. - manielse
Exercise - that's something I should do more of instead of sitting around studying and analyzing things to death. I'm grossly out of shape! - Jannifer Stoddard
I clean house and throw or give things away. A bike ride is always helpful, too. - Chris Baskind
I take a long walk - fortunately we live near a greenway. biking on the greenway also clears my mind. - Mike Nencetti
Manielse - right - my online business, but the more traditional "bread and butter" of it is getting out and meeting people, having shows, expos and those type of things. I did have the very best advantage as far as online presence and although I'm still on page 1 and page 2 of Google searches, it draws the bad type of attention from my competition, who then take various measures to knock me out. - Jannifer Stoddard
The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim. - Sun Tzu - Robert Hafer
I'm always thinking about how to prevent or stop competitors from capitalizing on my work and this makes me hesitant to move forward because it's like I'm working for them, then I'm analyzing things to death. Meanwhile, the inertia causes me to lose ground in a huge way while I watch others make huge strides quite rapidly. - Jannifer Stoddard
Find an Extroverted partner for the Traditional half and perhaps that person can even create a video podcast discussing your items. You can be the Jay Adelson (CEO of Digg) while someone plays the Kevin Rose role. Trying to prevent or stop competitors does nothing except hold you back from moving forward. - manielse
Resistance drains energy ~ Acceptance saves it. - manielse
Manielse - that's exactly what I've been looking for and failing at getting - more extroverted independent "partners" to join with me and work together. I have a ton of resources, but they just sit there, because they're not effective for just one person (me), but are for a group of people to utilize together. - Jannifer Stoddard
If you're talking about your "Demonstrators", that's not uncommon in your business model. You'll have a lot of "resources" that will just sit there but 1-2% will shine. I thought you meant the CEO-type activities. Very different issues... - manielse
I work best in situations where there is synergy and connection. Trying to move forward alone isn't effective in this type of business. And you're right manielse - I definitely spend too much time trying to prevent or stop competitors and that's one of the main ways I'm getting stuck. I'm not sure how I would go about acceptance (particularly if it has to do with accepting my unique ideas and content being stolen and used). - Jannifer Stoddard
Oh - sorry manielse - didn't mean to be confusing. I'm just yapping to myself I guess. - Jannifer Stoddard
Seems like I kind of hijacked the tread and we're yapping together. :-) - manielse
I share your moving forward alone versus lack of synergy & energy of the same passion issue as well BTW. Too many times in the past (and present) I just get frustrated and try to do EVERYTHING by myself. - manielse
I bake. - Steven Perez
Manielse - you expressed it exactly! - Jannifer Stoddard
Well, I just got back from Lowes and walked around a lot - hope that counts as exercise! - Jannifer Stoddard
Listen to music.. - Saad Kamal
...Vezquex
Why does Facebook have a "quail air background" on their Twitter profile? - http://twitter.com/facebook
Why does Facebook have a "quail air background" on their Twitter profile?
Jannifer Stoddard
emailbrain | Smart Email and SMS Communication - anyone use or try this? If so, is it good? - http://www.emailbrain.com/eb...
emailbrain | Smart Email and SMS Communication - anyone use or try this? If so, is it good?
I keep looking for the perfect intuitive newsletter management system to use to send out nice looking newsletters. I keep trying different things and haven't found the "right" thing yet. - Jannifer Stoddard via Bookmarklet
Liked, but I haven't used it. I guess Google or Yahoo groups don't do it for you? - Andy Bold
No, I'm looking for easier to use newsletters to send out occasionally for my business - I've been really bad at not getting around to emailing things out to people :-/ - Jannifer Stoddard
the popular one (but it pisses me off) is constant contact. for the slightly more technically inclined there's phplist... but you need a public-facing webserver (for unsubscribe) with php + a database to set it up. - Michael J. Cohen (mjc)
I don't like constant contact. Another one I do like is Mad Mimi, but it's a little bit too expensive. - Jannifer Stoddard
JA Castillo (جاسون)
So, would anyone have any idea on how I use this / read this?! - http://www.flickr.com/photos...
So, would anyone have any idea on how I use this / read this?!
Wow. That thing is crazy looking. It looks like the f/stop is at the top, the ISO is to the left. Not sure about DIN and can't see the numbers that are at the bottom, but I'm guessing one of those has to do with shutter speed. Long answer, I know what everything is, but no idea how to read it :) - Justin Korn
Thanks, Justin. Unfortunately, there are no instructions for me to go by and the verbiage in the box just describes what the device does. Hoping to figure this out so shooting w/ my Brownie and Mamiya C330 will be a bit better than "lucking out"! :) - JA Castillo (جاسون)
DIN is what we call ISO today. I have a Sekonic meter that looks like it might date back to the same time as this one; I'll check the manual when I get home to see if I can come up with some instructions. - Cecily
Looks like you might be able to dig up a printed manual -http://www.oldtimercameras.com/stock... - Ken Sheppardson
@Cecily - thanks, that would be much appreciated. I am not able to sort this one out yet! Quick question...if DIN is what we would refer to as ISO today, what is the ASA equal to? - JA Castillo (جاسون)
@Ken - I may have to look into something like that if Cecily is unable to provide some insight. Thanks! - JA Castillo (جاسون)
I'm still looking! - Cecily
OK, here goes nothing (I couldn't find the manual). It looks like first you need to find a DIN/ISO equivalent chart - http://www.film.project-consultant.net/html... - the DIN/ASA/ISO is basically the speed of your camera (or film). Then point the end of the meter toward the center of your light source. The needle on the dial should point to a particular value. Set the... more... - Cecily
I can't make everything out from the photo (I need to see it larger) but you might follow along with the manual for my meter here: http://www.butkus.org/chinon... (don't worry, it's free). - Cecily
It still looks like my suggestion might work, but then again you might be better off trying Ken's link for a specific manual. - Cecily
I pulled down your manual and will give it a read tonight. Will see what I can decipher out of that. :) - JA Castillo (جاسون)
...Vezquex
Anyone bought a Sony MP3 player recently? I'm advising a friend on an MP3 player purchase, and I was thinking more along the lines of Sandisk or Creative.
Sansa cause there damn near indestructible - Chase
Or at least the older ones, remember to get one with aluminum..... NOT plastic - Chase
Yeah, she settled on an 8GB Sandisk Sansa, albeit plastic. - ...Vezquex
Dillon K. Hoops
Is there anything wrong with just swapping your old iPhone's SIM into the iPhone 3GS?
Kol Tregaskes
OK, if I wanted to go about learning SQL, where should I start?
I found so many SQL jobs today it's ridiculous. I suppose it's the natural progression from my Excel reporting skills but I have very, very little coding experience. - Kol Tregaskes
This is actually a secret. Being a DBA is the easiest job in IT and it pays well. - Peter Kruit
Learning SQL from O'Reilly http://bit.ly/puOi8 - andy brudtkuhl
Or jump into Microsoft Access - andy brudtkuhl
Is this true Peter? I have heard from some people in the IT industry that there is always demand for DBAs - I remember trying to learn it in school and the SQL queries can get quite complicated if you don't have the mind for it - Wang Yip
Thanks, Andy. - Kol Tregaskes
fwed
Would be nice to be able to add "My feed" to a friend list, don't you think ?
You should be able to add yourself to any friend list. You can find yourself by typing in "You" in the box for filtering by name. - Dan Hsiao
@Dan, the "you" thing doesn't appears in my box. Does it appear for you ? Can you tell me more ? - fwed
fwed, although it's labeled "You", it should appear in the list of all subscriptions alphabetized by your name. You're looking in the box that appears when you select "Add/remove friends" in the header bar for a friend list, right? - Dan Hsiao
That's right where I am looking. Here is a screenshot : http://is.gd/12ked - fwed
Anyone else sees the "You" thing ? - fwed
Thanks for the screenshot. Asking around the office, some people have it and some don't, so there's definitely a bug. Added to our bugs list. Sorry for the inconvenience in the meantime. - Dan Hsiao
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Nathan Chase
Does anyone know of a jQuery-based, Growl-style notification plugin (like jGrowl http://www.stanlemon.net/project... ) but with the ability to add HTML (links, images, etc.) inside the notification, instead of just text?
stanlemon.net - jgrowl_1244599362132.png
never mind - i found out you can just drop an entire block of inline HTML into the function call and it will render out as expected. huzzah! - Nathan Chase
JA Castillo (جاسون)
Is there a possibility to play music on a Pre through a car stereo in a manner similar to that of an iPod / iPhone? In the future?
It supports AD2P stereo bluetooth profile and has a standard 3.5" stereo jack for now.. - Rodfather
...Vezquex
Why do some Asians use weird Unicode for Roman characters? Ex. This band is named Ambivalent instead of Ambivalent. Why do these characters even exist? http://www.last.fm/music...
Jannifer Stoddard
I'm trying to find a typography background or image for my new blog... I'm finding textures, but no typography... can anyone steer me in the right direction?
JA Castillo (جاسون)
OK...What's the best way to clean my drive and reinstall OS X (Tiger)? I am looking to sell my Mac Mini and do not want my information obtainable by new owners?!
I know that in Disk Utility there are options to do multiple passes at formatting a hard drive and writing null data to it so that disk recovery utilities (except for uber-high-end ones) can't recover any data. However, never having done a full wipe and reinstall of the OS, I couldn't tell you specifics on procedure. - Cheryl Jones
why not use disk utility and do a secure erase that should work - Kim Landwehr
Buy a new HD is most secure but the multipass erase is probably good enough for non-NSA types - Andrew Leyden
Multipass erase is best option, if new harddrive, you can use old one for backup purposes Nick Sialmas - Nick Sialmas
fwed
Smoking before or after the coffee ?
definetely before. I like finishing with the taste of coffee :) - fwed
So long ago that I last smoked, that I can't remember! - Ian May
Jannifer Stoddard
After being on twitter, I come back over to FriendFeed and delete excess imported tweets - am I the only one who does that?? (via http://friendfeed.com/wordsfo...)
Sometimes, for example the odd stray Spymaster tweet but I really bother deleting on Twitter itself. - Kol Tregaskes
I certainly correct any typos on tweets in FF but leave them on Twitter. - Kol Tregaskes
No. I don't bother unless I specifically notice something. I haven't got time. - Ian May
...Vezquex
Every U.S. president has a few famous sound bites. It's obviously early in the game, but what's the most memorable thing President Obama has said so far?
fwed
Once we added on FF all our friends that are on twitter (even those who aren't on FF, with imaginary friends), why use the website of twitter ? Is there some people that use both ? Why ? (I think i'm missing something with all these social interactions :)
I'd love to have FF as my Twitter client but without any kind of bulk import of non-FF Twitter friends it's not doable atm. - Kol Tregaskes
I post to Twitter via FF or Ping.fm, but don't use the site. - Kelly W.
@Kol, indeed. That's a problem I don't have because i'm new hehe. - fwed
@Kelly, why use ping.fm AND ff ? - fwed
fwed, Ping.fm allows you to post to multiple micro-blogging services not just FF. I use it to post to Twitter and several other sites. I wish, though, hat FF supported both Hellotxt and Ping.fm. Both have APIs and you are already able to use them on the likes of Twitterfeeds. - Kol Tregaskes
JA Castillo (جاسون)
Query to the collective: what is a good (free) option / way to sync Google Calendar items w/ GCal? (via http://friendfeed.com/castill...)
Nathan Chase
Is there a web service that lets you directly link to an mp3 and have it auto-enclose it with a media enclosure or a Media RSS enclosure, so that you can link to it here on FriendFeed and have the playback controls show up?
Posterous and Utterli kinda handle this for you - Rahsheen ™
Seems about 5 minutes with PHP/ASP/[insert language you like here] could generate the appropriate RSS passing in the MP3 URL as a parameter. I should also add that this is probably easily done as well with Yahoo Pipes. - Kevin Kuphal
ugh, all I want to do is share an mp3 here on Friendfeed and have the playbar show up. I guess there's no way to link directly to an RSS via a FriendFeed share without setting it up as one of your linked services... - Nathan Chase
Nathan, you could use Drop.io. Upload the mp3 there and feed the drop into FF: the player shows up here properly. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Tina would I have to add it as one of my services? - Nathan Chase
Yup. Although, you might be able to create a group, feed it in there, and reshare it. EDIT: you could also try using the bookmarklet on it, that might work but I haven't tried it. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
It'd be nice if you could just paste in the link to the MP3 the same way you can paste a link to a video and have the embedding happen automagically. - Ken Sheppardson
ah - good call Tina! that might be the solution - Nathan Chase
Tina - thank you! that worked splendidly! http://friendfeed.com/nathanc... - Nathan Chase
I like Ken's idea. I'll try Drop.io too, and have another look at Posterous and Utterli - I'm sure there are lots of other FriendFeeders who would like a simple way to do this. - Chris Loft
You can do what you want by using noiseriver, if not just for that one post. I use it all the time to post FFundercats episodes, since it allows a picture and a MP3 and is instant. - Josh Haley
So what did you end up doing, Nathan? I see it's a Posterous link. Just set up Posterous to post to FF and use it as a client? - Ken Sheppardson
I ended up creating a private group, added the posterous as a service to it, and then reshared it to my Home feed. Definitely a long workaround - but it did do the trick! - Nathan Chase
Aha... interesting... By the way, I think I've seen people using Yahoo Pipes to pull in their blip.fm feeds and create an embedded player, so maybe Pipes is another service to stick in the toolbox. - Ken Sheppardson
Yeah - I definitely think being able to link directly to an MP3 file and have the playbar show up would be a nice feature. I will suggest it to the FF team. - Nathan Chase
There is, of course, what seems to be the universal answer to anything FriendFeed doesn't already do, or to bringing back stuff FF used to do but doesn't anymore: Greasemonkey script. If the API supports creating an MP3 item, something in the browser could handle it for you. - Ken Sheppardson
Nathan, did you try sharing the item with the bookmarlet? That should in theory work if the items is properly coded onto the page. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
@Tina - yeah, I did try that first - the playbar didn't show up - Nathan Chase
JA Castillo (جاسون)
I am sure we are all quite familiar with PayPal, but are there any other payment systems out there just as good? I am looking to buy a camera from someone and we can conduct the transaction via PayPal, but the guy will get dinged some with fees. Just looking for alternatives to consider.
FYI...this is a "word of mouth" sale, not on Craigslist or eBay and the like. Another reason for my question. - JA Castillo (جاسون)
I've not used it much but I've heard good things about Revolution Money Exchange. - Rochelle
But you have used it once or twice? - JA Castillo (جاسون)
I've used Google checkout before successfully with people who didn't use Paypal and it worked great, but I don't know if it has fees. - Trish R
Forgot about Checkout. Do you have to have a "store" in order to use it? Or can it be used to trade funds as we are looking to do? Hmm...off to read up on this... - JA Castillo (جاسون)
JA Castillo, yes, a few times when it first came out. - Rochelle
You could look into http://obopay.com. When this site opened over a year ago, I signed up and got the $25 signup/referral fee, and they paid me, but I haven't used it to send money. However, it says it's only 25 cents to send money. - Trish R
they all charge fees. that's how they make their money and stay in business. ikobo.com or westernunion.com might work. moneybookers.com is another option. or do a straight up wire transfer from your bank to his. - tiffany
You could check out https://expensify.com/ [EDIT] --- at least I think. They used to have a send/request money feature, but I can't seem to find it at the moment. - Justin Korn
Reading over the way Revolution Money Exchange works, it looks like that might be a good option. About to look into obopay.com; thanks Trish. - JA Castillo (جاسون)
...Vezquex
My father is a huge music fan, having purchased hundreds of vinyl records, cassettes, and CDs. I am also an enthusiast, however, my entire collection is obtained through file sharing. So, would you say I'm primarily A) connecting with my dad through a shared interest in music, or B) rebelling against his commercialism?
WMPSideShowGadget_exe_01_22.png
C) I think there are very few people in this world that *don't* like music. It's a drug that parts of our brain responds to. So you and your father are just obeying the biological prerogative of all humans to like music, no matter where they get it. - Vincent van Wylick
Nilesh
“would u register domain / twitter / facebook and other web 2.0 service for your new born ? i would...” - http://friendfeed.com/e...
dK
Dear friendfeeders out there: now that thyme (from http://www.extrosoft.com) is no longer available, due to the company being out of business (and sadly they were not willing to release the source code ;( ). (via http://friendfeed.com/dekay...)
Nathan Chase
Anyone use Vertical Response, ConstantContact, or Mailchimp for email marketing? Horror stories? Words of praise?
I used Constant Contact when I had an enewsletter and was super impressed with them. Great templates, tips, etc. I even went to one of their workshops my association was sponsoring, and they were amazing. I tried Vertical Response before them, and didn't like their enewsletter layouts, etc. - Shevonne
Am I correct that Constant Contact slaps on their logo to the bottom of any email you send out? Kind of concerned if that's the case. Vertical Response seems to have the best pricing (0.15 cents per email)... - Nathan Chase
@Nathan I think they do that, but don't remember. You sometimes get what you pay for. - Shevonne
yeah - that's what I was afraid of... :( - Nathan Chase
@Nathan Another one that is really good is AWeber's Email Marketing. I preferred it to Constant Contact. http://www.aweber.com/ - Shevonne
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