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Twitter Updates for 2008-01-11

Posted on January 11, 2008 by jessestay

Just realized FC7 has rpms for Catalyst! That makes my job *so* much easier! #

Happy that I’m the only one in my family who likes the almond hersheys bars from @AfroWhitey’s wedding. #

Ecstatic that @rebeccastay got me both regular and Cherry Pepsi at the store! (I love my Pepsi) #

Expect for a *lot* of Facebook applications to go down in numbers!: http://tinyurl.com/yo32lg #

Sorry, just have to share this – this is article is very unclassy of Crunchgear and how they make fun of Mormons: http://snurl.com/1x52m #

@biznickman the great thing about the Bebo launch is it’s very simple for a Facebook developer to port their app over #

@biznickman any clue on demographics for Bebo? What are the largest countries using it? age range? #

@biznickman a few hints here: http://tinyurl.com/2bvyz4 #

finally! Stay N’ Alive blog is back online! I tried to do it right this time, hence the wait: http://www.jessestay.com/ #

@humancell I would, but my day is full of meetings (yuck!) #

considering registering for http://en.oreilly.com/gspwest2008/public/content/home #

@phil801 I was just about to write a blog post as well – very unclassy, I don’t care who they were making fun of! #

@phil801 the thing is, I was backing off from mentioning my religion on my blog, but they just gave me a reason to that fits with my theme #

@phil801 I would have too – it’s unacceptable #

is Mike Arrington on Twitter? #

@TechCrunch what were you thinking in posting blatent bigotry on your “respectable” gearcrunch blog? I know many Mormons unsubscribing now. #

sounds like I need to make some posts on the LDS Apps on Facebook – the number of Mormons on Facebook rival that of Catholics, based on … #

I bet I can get those on the Catholic App (35k users) to rebel against @TechCrunch’s actions as well #

Not to mention that if I say the word Mormon on Twitter, other Mormons on Twitter will talk about this post: http://snurl.com/1x52m (track) #

@phil801, @TechCrunch see my comment on the phil801.com blog #

forget my backup strategy – I’m blogging now 😛 #

@libel_vox – I’m turning my other cheek, from TechCrunch #

My answer to @TechCrunch ‘s CrunchGear bigoted Anti-Mormon fiasco: http://snurl.com/1x5ab #

Facebook’s announcement tonight and why I think it will mean more productive applications: http://snurl.com/1x5c7 #

Digg up the story for anti-bigotry in America: http://tinyurl.com/ytuej6 #

Join the “Boycott Techcrunch” group on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/22luln #

@ByteEngine http://snurl.com/1x5ab also http://snurl.com/1x6r3 also http://snurl.com/1x6r5 #

@ByteEngine thanks for adding me! #

w00t! Just got my free O’Reilly books! 🙂 #

@petdance – they chose for me, so don’t laugh – “Learning the UNIX Operating System” and “C# Essentials”. I still like books, so hey – … #

CrunchGear – That was Uncalled For

Posted on January 11, 2008 by jessestay

I’ve been straying away from mentioning religion on my blog for awhile. Partly because I deal with so many religions on a daily basis through my Catholic Facebook Application, Baptist Facebook Application, and recently sold LDS Application. I love religion, and have grown to respect all religions as I strive to make this business model flourish. Each religion has its own identity and culture, and everyone within that religion appreciates that religion as part of their lives. A Religion one belongs to is a part of that individual, something they can’t easily part from, and will stay with them to the end, whether they remain a part of it or not. There are true, sincere human beings within these religions!

CrunchGear, TechCrunch, and the Mike Arrington crew crossed the line yesterday in a bigoted article that defies and offends many of the culture Mormons and I would say even other religions and cultures hold dear. The article can be found here.

I don’t care what religion or culture you belong to (See phil801’s post where he compares their comments to “the gay person that’s interviewing after you”). I don’t care if you belong to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster for all I care. You were brought up in that religion or culture, you accepted that culture as part of your life. You love the religion or culture you are in and it is personal to you.

Now, imagine if instead of “magic underwear”, Devin and the crew at Crunch Gear were making fun of the “magic crucifix” that Catholics wear, or the “magic prayers” Evangelicals give to each other, or the “magic Turbans” Siekh’s wear, or the “magic yarmulke” that Jewish men wear, or the “magic Burqa” Islamic women wear. These are all very respectable symbols to their religion, part of their identity and culture that CrunchGear is making fun of by posting this interview. This interview is a symbol towards bigotry in America and we shouldn’t stand for it.

Michael Arrington and CrunchGear, I suggest an apology to the Mormons, and removal of the anti-Mormon comments on your blog. I don’t care if Penn Jillette or you guys started it. The fact is you have chosen to post an interview that is blatently bigoted towards a single faith on your site which has nothing to do with religion! As a religious person, or human being in general, I will be unsubscribing from CrunchGear, TechCrunch, abstaining from voting for the Crunchies altogether, and disassociating myself with any of the TechCrunch network. I hope my readers will as well until this is resolved.

(2008-1-11) UPDATE: Please join the Facebook Group, “Boycott TechCrunch!” here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7719689369

Twitter Updates for 2008-01-10

Posted on January 10, 2008 by jessestay

Trying to figure out why a new Amazon EC2 instance won’t let me set up Software RAID (I’m following the Amazon tutorial!) #

why won’t “fdisk /dev/sdb” work on my EC2 instance? It keeps giving me an “Unable to open” error, yet the tutorial tells me to do it! #

@humancell you’re right, I don’t. I’m an idiot. 🙂 However, I do have /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2, and I get the same when I “fdisk /dev/sda” #

I wonder if the EC2 small instances don’t support software raid? #

I need a Fedora-based AMI that comes with software RAID pre-setup #

@humancell, yes – that works. I wonder if I just need to go about it that way, rather than targeting a whole device #

@humancell whoa – that’s weird. I could, but now I can’t any more. Now it says it’s unreadable again. #

pounding my head on the desk #

frak! Amazon small instance servers DO NOT support software RAID. Starting to think that ec2 may not be my best solution – no good backup. #

that was about 20 hours down the drain… #

My suggestion – get a cheap hosted solution, mount RAID to an S3 virtual drive, and then setup large ami instances on Amazon to be ready #

@petdance -> #

Stay N’ Alive Has a New Design!

Posted on January 8, 2008 by jessestay

I’m proud to announce the new design of the Stay N’ Alive blog. Yes, that is me on a Segway, a little slouched, but my real, geeky self, having fun. I’m tempted to subtitle the blog, “A Developer, Having Fun!” Really, that is what being a developer is all about – if you’re not having fun, find something else! I sincerely love what I do – at heart, I will always be a developer, a Geek at heart.

Another geek at heart, Bill Gates, gave his final keynote address at CES last night. He left a hilarious, yet touching video making fun of what his final day could be like. I have to admit, as a Linux and Mac user primarily (I use Windows for my Entertainment Center experience), I was a little choked up after this. I became a programmer because of Bill Gates, working on MS DOS machines, Windows 1 (came on a 5″ floppy), 2, 3, 3.1, and 95 way before I was ever a Linux user. I owe much of my experience as a programmer to this man – while we make fun of him, he is an inspiration to us all:

Twitter Updates for 2008-01-07

Posted on January 7, 2008 by jessestay

Sitting down in the office, getting ready to watch “Deal or No Deal” #

Simpsons was a classic tonight #

so do I have to have silverlight installed to use “ZuneSocial”? #

omg! Microsoft has reinvented iLike! #

@petdance lol! #

does sync come with the cameraman? #

I want voice on my iPhone – I miss that from my MDA #

lol – Bill Gates is playing GH3! #

much less excited about Microsoft this year than I was last year – what happened? #

Las Vegas needs to hop on the Twitter bandwagon – if one person wins $1k and Twitters all their friends, can you imagine the onslaught? #

@ladanea lol! I’d still wear pants – just not Christmas ones 😉 Actually, I like my Christmas pants. #

What are your favorite WordPress theme sites? #

@libel_vox how did Laura get into CES? I’m so jealous! #

@LauraMoncur you’re famous! Great to see you on qik. #

@jptrenn do you have a url? #

@jrockway rub it in why don’t you? 😉 It’s like 20+ degrees here in Utah. #

My new blog design is up: http://www.jessestay.com/ #

@akula I’m such a geek! 😉 #

I’m off to bed – night guys! #

Twitter Updates for 2008-01-06

Posted on January 6, 2008 by jessestay

Want to follow all those that follow you like @scobleizer and @guykawasaki and @chrispirillo? Announcing SocialToo.com: http://snurl.co … #

@QueenofSpain are you still looking for a way to automatically follow those that follow you? #

follow the CES podtech bus!: http://mogulus.com/podtech_CES_live #

@MarinaMartin it will follow *everyone* who is, or will ever follow you. #

@marinamartin all I ask in return is that you tell your friends! 🙂 #

@MarinaMartin yes, this is *much* easier than installing my script #

@MarinaMartin let me know if you want me to blacklist any usernames – the functionality is there, I just don’t have a UI for it yet #

@MarinaMartin I’ll set a goal to have the UI for that this week. I’d also like to add a few other features if I have time. #

anyone have a good suggestion for livestreaming directly from my blog? I want to post a widget that users can see me when I have it on. #

@humancell is there a web service out there that hosts it for me? #

ustream.tv and mogulus both allow live streaming, but don’t provide widgets to stream outside their own website #

@humancell I’m looking for a free service like ustream.tv or mogulus, but I want the video embedded on my own blog #

@octalmage, @acmephoto, how do I go about embedding that? Any suggestions? Just look at the source and replace ids? #

@octalmage excellent! Thank you! #

@juliaroy Happy Birthday!!! #

@QueenofSpain sign up at socialtoo.com and it will do it for you. #

I need to redesign my blog some time – it’s *way* cluttered #

on ustream, how do I get it to stream another channel when my channel isn’t working? #

@octalmage, correct – when pirillo is gone, he is somehow able to turn it over to another stream #

@octalmage okay – I can probably hack it if I ever need to – just thought there might be a feature. #

look at me! I”m live – left sidebar of my blog: http://www.jessestay.com (forgive my messy hair) #

@jasonalba I’m giving free advertising of your book on my stream 🙂 #

wow – you can really see my bald spot in this video 🙂 #

@humancell I found code on their show page. @octalmage helped me out. #

wow – I have 4 people watching me – this feels so weird. #

I think I’m going to keep the video on and see if @rebeccastay complains. Just have to remember to keep my clothes on in the Basement. #

@octalmage yup – that was you twittering me 🙂 #

you can chat in here (I’ll try to add the chat somewhere in my blog too): http://www.ustream.tv/channel/jessecam #

“The Ask Jesse Show” it is – anyone have any questions they want to ask me? 🙂 http://www.ustream.tv/channel/jessecam #

@jasonalba night! #

Wondering when everyone else on Twitter is going to get their own TV channel #

How I created my own Blog TV Channel: http://tinyurl.com/26gco7 #

@mlwhall it’s so needed, yet so many more things to do ahead of a redesign! I hear you there! #

@mlwhall me neither! Just a little html and css, with a good pre-existing WordPress template will often do #

@ladanea night! That just gave me an idea – live reading of THE BOOK via ustream #

pilot light in the heater went out last night – it’s freezing! #

How to Create Your Own TV Channel for Your Blog

Posted on January 6, 2008 by jessestay

I’ve been considering doing this for awhile – we’ll see how long it lasts and when my wife puts an end to it. If you look in the upper-left corner of the blog, you’ll see the “Ask Jesse” Show stream. If I’m online, when you click play you’ll see me, live, as you are on the blog!

Here’s how I did it:

Create an account at Ustream.tv

Click on “My Shows” – there you can configure the look and feel of your show page if you want

Click on the “Go to Show URL” link next to the “Broadcast Now” button

You’ll now see an “Embed Stream” html snippet in the lower right of the page – copy this, then paste into your html layout for your blog

Click “Broadcast Now”, and you’re live for all your voyeuristic viewers to see!

The Camera I’m using is the Logitech Quickcam Communicate STX. It has great picture, includes a built-in microphone that detects how far you are, and the camera comes in with built-in software that follows where your face is (or two faces if you’re more than one person). I’m half-way across the room, and you can still hear me well, and the streaming results are almost real-time! (Scott Lemon says it took just 14 seconds from him Twittering to me saying I received the Twitter)

Some issues to watch out for:

Make sure you’re appropriate when your camera is on! Put a sign up or something reminding those entering the camera area that they are being recorded.

Be careful if you talk to sensitive business clients. You may want to mute, or stop the stream altogether so sensitive information isn’t broadcast out to the entire world

Be sure your router can handle the bandwidth. I use a Gigabit Linksys WRT350N Router, and my Comcast connection has 8 Mb down, and about 3 or 4 up (at times). Search for “Comcast Speed” in the search box in the upper-right for some tips on how to speed up your home internet

My big prediction for 2008 is it will be the year of streaming video, and you’ll see more and more people embracing such technologies. I think I’ll try this for a bit – I think this can be a great way to drive people to stay on your blog longer. People are naturally voyeuristic, and want to know more about the person whose writing they are reading. If they can actually see them and chat with them, they are likely to stay longer, bringing more traffic to your site.

Twitter Updates for 2008-01-05

Posted on January 5, 2008 by jessestay

just hacked my router to dd-wrt and upped the power. Let’s see if that fixes my range problems. #

The wind outside sounds a lot like it did in VA when Isabell came through #

@jrockway I loved your comment on my blog – I agree totally 🙂 #

This is a pretty cool “pay for viewing ads” system – Pirillo made $1000 yesterday from it!: http://bux.to/?r=jessestay (use that link an … #

announcement on SocialToo.com coming tonight (hopefully). Stay tuned!… #