Today while going through one of my inboxes I had an email from Live Labs with a preview code for Pivot, an experimental way to look at large amounts of data. As I sat looking at the email on my phone I found myself wondering what was Pivot. I recalled requesting an invitation, but that was it. While I was considering that I was trying to think of what to blog for today and I realised that when I started my Cloud Gazing series the plan was to write about this very thing. An interesting Application or service that I happened to have signed up for. I’ve done some of this, but I still find myself waiting way to long from using a new service to writing about it. That ends today. First with my First look at Pivot, and next week when I write about my experiences with Threadsy, Inbox2 and how I hope Mozilla’s Raindrop will wash them away. I’m also hoping to get to some follow ups, but that is for another day.
Continue reading “A new way to look at the clouds”
One of my childhood memories is sitting with my dad at the computer. At the time I was watching and learning what he was doing on the computer. I remember learning some of the basics of computers and programming at his knee. So I find it great that Jacob now wants to sit on my lap and play on the computer. Its a special time that the two of use share. Right now that consists of exploring the different shows, games and videos on PBSKids.org and www.cbc.ca/kidscbc/. We usually spend about 15 to 30 minutes, 3 or 4 times a week in front of the computer. He asks for it almost every day. Its great to have special moments to share with him, because he’s growing so fast, I can’t believe in just a month he’s starting pre-school, and before long it will be kindergarten. He’s growing up so fast.
Here is a call out to my readers. I’m looking for other things to share with him on the computer. Perhaps sites or programs that I could get that would help teach him how to use the mouse. He’s already typing, well hunting and pecking at the keys. He types in addresses of the sites we go to. He loves Babysmash, so I’m looking for other things to engage him.
Today I take a look at 2 service for posting to multiple sites at once, Ping.FM and hellotxt.com. I’ve been members of both for a long time, but I find that I really only use Ping.FM. I’m writing this review to share my experiences with these services and to try and figure out why that is. On the surface there is nothing that puts one over the other. It might have been when they were new, and I signed up ping.fm had better support for the networks I used. If that was the case it’s not anymore. So lets look at the two services as they are today and see what we find.
Ping.FM
www.ping.fm/
From day one PingFM has had a very simple web interface, with your Social networks on the left and a big box with for typing your updates on the right. Below the update box where the services and tools available from ping.fm. This section has expanded considerably since I started using the service.
The web interface is nice, but my primary way of interacting with Ping.FM has always been through E-mail and IM. When I’m out and about and I want to post an update I usually send a quick email to my ping.fm address and out it goes, if it contains a picture that’s added either embedded in the post, on services that support it, or as a link for people to follow. All media you post is linked to your account and placed in a My Media section so that you can go back and check them out. This is a very nice feature.
Continue reading “Cloud Gazing: Ping.FM and hellotxt”
With this post I’ve managed to post every day for 2 consecutive months. If you count the last day of September, that’s 62 days in a row. That’s more posts then I had done on my blog in the 4 months since I launched it in May. At times my posts have been lame, but overall I’m very proud of what I’ve been writing over the last 62 days. So now I have a question to answer, do I continue in December. NaBloPoMo is monthly so I could sign up again, plus there is the yearly challenge Holidailies, I’ve done it in years past and been thinking that I’ll do it again. Of course it starts on the 7th, so if I skip NaBloPoMo I could have a break before gearing up for Holidailies. Of course that would mean giving up on my personal goal of 100 posts in 100 days.
Stay tuned to see which way I go.
Last night I pulled out the box of with our Christmas tree and put it up. I thought I’d share some photos from the event.
I wanted to just use the box as our tree this year, but Melissa thought Jacob would prefer the real tree…
Chloe was very interested in the process.
Continue reading “Unboxing my Christmas Tree”
Today I share a video from a Canadian TV show ‘This Hour Has 22’ They sent on of there reporters to interview Palin about her new book:
We’re on the eve of the last weekend of November, Christmas is less then a month away. The Christmas windows are already out downtown, and all the stores seem to be playing Christmas music. So perhaps it’s time to decorate the house. Except when I look at the calendar and see that it’s still November part of me balks. I believe you should shouldn’t decorate for Christmas until December. Though it looks like this year I will have to brake that rule and start pulling the stuff out this weekend.
With the coming weeks filled with trips to the Santa Experience, Santa Train and Family events there just wont be time. Plus our little guy will be heading to Nana’s for a sleepover party tomorrow night. So there probably wont be a better time to pull the boxes out, setup the tree. We’ll wait till he’s home to decorate. I’ve also got to get our lights setup outside. We might be the only place with lights, but that doesn’t matter they look pretty and well Melissa likes having them.
Another session of swimming has wrapped up. For Jacob it was an ok session. He learned some things but in the end didn’t really seem to progress. I think we’ll be sending him back to one on one lessons. He gets to distracted having other kids in the class. I know that’s something he’ll have to learn, but with him starting pre-school in January I think we can focus on getting him to be a better swimmer at swim class and for now that means one on one.
As for Violet it was a great session. I’m not sure how long it is till she’ll start taking lessons with a teacher instead of me, for now I intend to enjoy the time I get with my little girl. She wont stay that way long. She’s really liking the pool and will be interesting to see how quickly she learns the skills.
Registration for the winter is in December with classes starting some time in January, I think. So we’ve got a couple of weeks to determine which class Jacob, and what day they will go. Of course a couple of weeks goes by fast, so we’ll problem try to get that sorted out this weekend.
