James VanDyke

Lifestreaming is a term that refers to the aggregation of various streams of content that a person creates on social media sites.

Between Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and Blogs the content a person creates can be spread out in many separate places. The promise of lifestreaming is that you can pull together all of that silo-ed content into one stream that you can share with others. For people like me, an added benefit is that you can have a blog that doesn’t seem out-of-date.

The downside is that I haven’t found a great way to integrate all of that content on my Wordpress blog. I’ve added a lifestream page that pulls in most of the information but I haven’t been able to integrate that with my blog entries. So, I’ll keep playing with it and let you know what I find.

I’m using the Wordpress plug-in Lifestream right now.

Note: I had to upgrade my database from MySQL version 4 to version 5 to make it work. While’s it not a hard process it’s not something you’d want to do without a backup in case something goes wrong.

Type what you want to track.

One of my favorite tools to track mentions of a company, product or person is Google Alerts. This is a simple tool that can give you an edge in understanding what people are saying about you or your organization.

How it works

Choose a search term and use advanced search options to tailor your results. Google will scan the internet for you at the time interval you decide and then email what it finds to you.

You can also decide what type of content you want to hear about. I like the comprehensive option, but it can also selectively search: news sites, blogs, the general web, video and groups.

Once you’ve created your alert you’ll be able to login using a Google Account to edit your alerts. You can also receive the results as an RSS feed to insert into your favorite feed reader by clicking the search term while managing your alerts. Just look for the RSS icon either in the address bar of your browser or on the left hand side of the page.

What have you used Google Alerts to track? Leave a comment and let us know.

A great point and shoot camera

I bought a Kodak Zi6 recently. It’s a no-frills HD video camera that only costs $150. The camera takes 720p video, has a 2.4 inch view screen and a SD memory card slot to store your videos on. It uses 2 AA batteries for power and stores the videos as QuickTime movie files.

The camera’s biggest draw is that it’s point and shoot. It’s one of a new category of video cameras pioneered by Flip.

The camera also has a few drawbacks, like most of the point and shoot category, that are important to know going in. First, there is no optical zoom. The camera does offer a 2x digital zoom but it degrades the quality, so it’s best to avoid. Second, there is no image stabilization. This means that if you don’t use a tripod then your video is going to look a little shaky. The popularity of this category of video camera has resulted in Apple adding software stabilization to the latest version of it’s iMovie software.

Here’s a link to a sample of the video in HD.

Posterous Logo

Posterous is a service that should appeal to people who want to post things online but don’t want to deal with the technical details. It works by simply emailing what you want to post to post@posterous.com. You don’t even need to create an account to get started, just email them. The contents of your email whether text, pictures,  or a video are automatically uploaded to a page that is created for you. After your first email, you have the option to visit the site and customizing address and settings for your content. If your looking for an incredibly simple way to post content or blog on the web try Posterous.

My Posterous page: jamesvandyke.posterous.com

The Posterous Website

Linux Penguin

I want to love Linux but it doesn’t share my feelings. To be honest, I think it’s hurt that I’m only looking for a fling; a trophy of geekdom to casually flaunt at parties. “Yeah, I”ve got a Linux box at home.” We both know that when I’m done experimenting I’ll head back to the Mac.

I think that’s the problem with Linux, even all dressed up in Ubuntu’s latest, it wants a serious commitment. Linux is a idealist and I’m looking for practicality. The little penguin even lectures me when I try to have a little fun with Flash.

“You know that’s not open source. We can do it if you want but I’m not going to enjoy it.”

“Lighten up a little. I’m just looking for some fun,” I reply.

We’re ships passing in the night, exchanging glances, thinking what could be but ultimately knowing nothing will come of it. I can tell this spunky OS has features and the ideals it pushes are mesmerizing. Sadly, those ideals aren’t as easy to live with as they are to listen to. Sure, I want information to be free but the cool stuff, it’s not free, and Linux can’t compete.

So every once in a while I’ll keep looking back over my shoulder at the little preachy penguin, wishing that it could live up to it’s own dreams; but sadly, I’ll walk away with Mac because I can live with Mac.

What to do when you need to know which font was used for a graphic? Well, if you’re short a typographist or font-spotter graphic designer you might try What the Font. It’s a free web service from myfonts.com who I’m guessing hopes you discover that the font you need is sold right on theirwebsite. So, if you ready for the certain to come pitch to buy something then give it a spin. At the least they have a few examples you can test it out on.

Visit What the Font.

David Pogue, technology columnist for the New York Times, has released a entertaining way to narrow down your choices before a tech purchase. This new tool called the “Pogue-O-Matic” basically just narrows your choices as you select the options you want. The treat comes as Mr. Pogue’s video commentary helps you choose which option is right for you. It’s not perfect and it only covers cameras, TVs and cell phones but it will help you understand the basics of which technologies are right for you.

Try the Pogue-O-Matic.

Wordpress released a new application for the iPhone today. The new self-titled application allows bloggers to post to their blog directly from their phone. The app also supports multiple blogs so prolific bloggers can update multiple blogs.

I wouldn’t expect long posts from the new application, those are still best left to keyboards and monitors. Like other applications you can download it from the iTunes store.

Update: One downside that I discovered is that you can’t edit a draft that is saved on the server. The app only supports drafts saved locally to your iPhone.

I joined the bandwagon this weekend and bought an iPhone. So far I’ve been very impressed with it.

One of the biggest questions that I had was if the on-screen keyboard would be easy to use. So far the answer is yes. The software correction is what makes it especially useful. I can just type and the software automatically fixes most of the mistakes I make.

I took the train into work today and had another wow moment. I was able to clear out my email inbox while traveling to work.

The last feature I really like is the GPS and Google Maps combo. We drove to a baseball game on Sunday and used the iPhone to guide us. It worked well. one downside

One of the downsides to the iPhone is it’s battery. On Monday I charged it overnight and turned it on the next morning. Unfortunatly it only lasted until about 5pm. This isn’t ideal but as long as I remember to bring the charger with me to work it shouldn’t be a big deal.

So there it is. Apparently the iPhone is as great as everyone says it is.

I’m currently working to finish up a project for one of my classes at school and I came across a bit of a Microsoft Excel problem.

If you try to divide by zero Excel throws a fit telling you to “#DIV/0!”

If you need the possibility of a zero in the divisor of one of your formulas without your worksheet spewing obscenities use the IF command with the following template:

=IF(test, if true result, else)

An Example:

=IF(A2=0,0,A1/A2)

This would result in the number 0 placed in the cell, effectively censoring Excel from telling you that you can’t divide by 0.

This also works with Google Docs.

What were you doing?
I was trying to setup a spreadsheet to evaluate entrepreneurial ventures but sometimes the values for certain sections needed to be zero. An example, we needed to account for both retail and manufacturing firms. However since retail firms don’t have manufacturing costs the spreadsheet has to realize you might be trying to compute manufacturing numbers where the divisor is 0.

Thanks to LifeHacker for the tip.