New blog

Loyal readers: I have a new blog: The Yankee Hacker! You can find it at http://yankeehacker.blogspot.com/. Please go check it out. Even better: follow it with Google Friend Connect and subscribe to the feed. I plan to post about a wide variety of things on that blog, but it will probably have a strong geek/nerd bend to it.

• http://feeds.feedburner.com/yankeehacker - the main feed: all the posts
  
• http://feeds.feedburner.com/yankeehackercomments - the comment feed
  
• http://feeds.feedburner.com/yankeehackerpages - a feed of all the static pages
  

Test for Gram

Trying to test my setup for my grandmother-in-law.

Dead blog

Sorry, but this blog is basically dead. This should be news to nobody, but I probably will not post anything useful here again. I may post test posts and muck around with things for testing (similar to my last couple of posts), but any useful content will be posted on a new blog I am putting together. I will post a link here when that blog is actually up.

And here is the test

Well, how do I look?

Test of multiple posts on the same day.

I apologize to my loyal subscribers, but I am testing what the default formatting looks like for multiple posts on the same day. I hope to start blogging again in the near future, but I realistically do not have time until after Christmas.

Help fixing a draft?

I recently purchased a home. While there are a lot of things wrong with the home and although it needs a lot of work, I think it is a nice home for my little family. It does need some TLC. One of my many current problem fixations is my drafty chimney:
I am not sure how to fix the draft. The stove was installed illegally by the previous owners, so we are not and will not be using it. There does seem to be a draft coming from either the chimney, the stove, or both. I need to fix this. Any ideas? The solution needs to be cheap (we just bought a house), easy (I need to be able to do it myself), and pretty (it is in my living room and people see it). A tall order, I know.

Here is a link to the Yahoo Answers question I posed about this. It already has one answer: plastic and duct tape. Would that really work? Any ideas of how to make that as pretty as possible?

Who is George?

It should not be news to anybody that I have become a big Jonathan Coulton fan. A while back I was listening to his song A Talk with George again and decided to finally figure out what the song was about. I liked the tune, and the lyrics seemed to describe somebody like Forrest Gump without the mental handicaps (popping in and out of historical events in a way that could have happened but seems rather implausible). It turns out that the song is about George Plimpton, and his life sounds even more amazing than the song makes it out.

Related to my work

I work for BAE Systems and am currently tasked on some projects for General Atomics. These projects involve the Predator. If I succeed, I will have created Skynet. Okay, not really. This comic from xkcd still made me laugh, though:

While I am there, the comic below (also from xkcd) relates to the conversation we had at lunch yesterday. One of my co-workers was defending TSA allowing her to bring her knitting needles on a plane. Those safety measures do not actually keep anybody safe, they just help the ignorant feel safe:

Google Wave: Day 2

I was surprised to have a few random people offer to accept a Wave invite over Twitter from me. Unfortunately for you random people, I have real friends and family who would get priority. That does not matter, since it appears that Google has closed the lid on inviting more people for now.

Here are some more useful links that I've come across for Google Wave:

• Starify, a simple little bot that has source code available
• Google Wave Extension List, a Google document collection of bots, gadgets, and extensions
• My Favorite Google Wave Bots by Gina Trapani
• Google App Engine is where most of the bots seem to be hosted

I went through and added a bunch of bots to my address book and then put them all in a group (found by searching for "appspot" in my contacts). I also created a personal wave with useful gadgets I might like to use later.

Google Wave first impressions

My sister-in-law sent me a Google Wave invite last week and it finally arrived this evening. So I have caught my first wave and played around with things a bit. I must admit the experience is a little underwhelming right now, but that is probably because I have not interacted with anybody on the service yet. Below I will jot down some notes.

Useful guides

Here are some websites I found that seemed particularly useful, or that look like they will be useful in the future, or that are written by people who generally write useful stuff:

• Google Wave Wikipedia article to answer that difficult question of "What is it?"
• Google Wave's support site for the official help line
• Google Wave 101 by Gina Trapani (TWIG panelist) for Lifehacker
• Google Wave first look by Gina Trapani for Lifehacker
• Wave Gadgets tutorial for extending Wave
• Google Wave: A Complete Guide by Ben Parr at Mashable
• Wavety.com the Complete, up-to-Date, list of Google Wave gadgets and robots
• TWIG 10 is an episode of This Week in Google focusing on Wave
• Wave Extensions featured by Google

Thoughts

As I mentioned before, I have not really done too much since I have not collaborated with anybody yet. As can be expected, there do not seem to be many of the obvious and necessary gadgets yet. For example, I would like to embed YouTube videos but have not figured that out yet. I also have not been able to integrate it with Google Groups. That is unfortunate, since I received my invite specifically so that I could use Wave with my in-laws who have an active mail list in Groups. I do like the Sudoku game.

Video

Here is a video about things to do in Google Wave:

Embed multiple Google calendars, the sequel

I put together some instructions of how to embed multiple Google calendars on Google Sites sites. I included screenshots and thought it looked pretty nice, plus I got some positive feedback for it. Unfortunately, Google seems to have changed something about how Sites interprets its calendar widget and made the hack I figure out not work anymore.

My attention was drawn to this by a comment today from a reader who had followed my instructions and received an error. Both his site and mine were complaining about chaining multiple site URLs like Google does in its own embedded calendar customizer. I noted the problem and said I would look into it later. Tonight was later.

This Google question indicated that somebody else was having a similar problem, but did not provide a solution. This chain of posts from the Google Calendar help group presented a solution similar to my original post and discussed a GUI solution from Google that I could not find in Chrome or IE 8.

Then I found this Google Sites help question that provides a work around. I am not entirely happy with it, but it is better than the error I was getting and gets the job done. You can find the instructions here. The trick is to insert a widget that lets you insert the calendar inside of it.

Wii Internet Channel Homepage

I put together a homepage for my Wii internet channel. Although I hope to eventually have a wireless USB keyboard to use with my Wii, right now I only have my Wii remotes. Typing with the Wii-remotes is tedious at best. So I used my computer to create a launchpad from my Wii. You can find it here.

In the process of making this site I ran across several sites that offered "Wii homepage" services. Wii browser looked pretty good, but some apparent inappropriate links on the front page turned me off. Wii home also looked pretty good. In the end I prefer the flexibility of controlling my own site over somebody else's more polished interface.

If I ever get motivated to polish my Wii homepage's interface, I ran across some good resources for that too. This blog post and another related one capture the specs of the Opera browser used on the Wii, plus provide some nice looking Wii buttons. This site has some information on interacting with the Wii remote through javascript. That will not fly with my website host (Google sites).

I tried to collect sites I have either found to be fun/useful on the Wii myself or think will be fun/useful in the future. If there was a Wii specific version of the site then I went with that, otherwise I included the site plus available mobile versions. Below is a list of sites that made the cut onto my Wii homepage. If you think I am missing something, please feel free to make a comment:

• Google video - Until the browser updates its flash and we can run Hulu, this is probably the best place to search for videos
  
• Stumble Upon Video - I do not use this service, but a lot of other sites recommended it
  
• YouTube - Most of the good content found in Google Video comes from this site. Plus, they have a Wii specific version
  
• Google Reader - I love Google Reader for aggregating feeds, plus they have a Wii specific interface
  
• WiiCade - This site collects flash games designed for the Wii. It turns the Wii into a little arcade and is a lot of fun
  
• Videlectrix - A few simple Wii flash games from a quality company. Alright, maybe not the most exciting. . .
  
• finetune - Another service I do not use right now, but I might start. It turns the Wii into a jukebox
  
• Clusty - A search engine optimized for the Wii. I think I'll stick with Google, but this is still nice
  
• Homestarrunner.com - Quality content that is best watched while single and late at night. Very funny
  
• Digg - Find the best stuff on the web here. I find the video section particularly useful for the Wii
  
• Myspace - I skipped the Myspace generation, but I heard it was/is kind of big
  
• Facebook - they want to hold all your information in their little books, so you can now show all that information on your Wii
  
• LinkedIn - Alright, maybe wanting to use this on your Wii is a bit of stretch
  
• Twitter - Using a Wii remote to type probably won't let you get much longer than 140 character before you go crazy
  
• flickr - The Wii comes with a nice photo channel, but that probably isn't as socially active for you as flickr
  
• Friendfeed - Release your inner geek and aggregate everything online and then check it out over your Wii
  
• Gmail - The best web mail client. Now you can check your email in your living room with everybody watching
  
• Amazon - Online shopping. What more could you want?

Trek 2009

No, not that one:We got back an hour ago from our LDS Stake's "Welcome to the valley" celebration for Trek 2009. The kids are now in bed. They were pretty good troopers for most of the day, but the activities definitely weren't geared toward them. We still haven't quite figured out how to best deal with our little toddler children at church social functions. Despite our frantic tracking of our children, we still could appreciate the scope of the event and imagine how cool it must have been for the youth.

A bit of background if you are reading this and not LDS (Mormon). I am LDS, and I attend a congregation in Billerica, except we call them wards. A group of wards forms a larger organization called a stake. The Billerica ward is part of the Nashua NH stake of the LDS church. The Nashua NH stake covers an area from Stow MA to Wilmington MA to Manchester NH to Keene NH and even out into Vermont a bit. It's about half a dozen wards (a little less, I think).

Stakes typically do a yearly multi-day activity for the youth (ages 14-18) in the summer. This year our stake did "Trek." Trek is a partial reenactment of the Mormon pioneer exodus to Salt Lake City. There are obvious limitations in terms of scope and feasibility in the Trek, but it gives the youth a taste and makes the Mormon pioneer heritage a little more real. Trek uses handcarts.

After going on a seventeen mile trip pulling handcarts, they reached their destination. That's where other members of the stake were invited to come and play games and then welcome the youth "into the valley" at the end of their journey. That was from 3-6 pm today. We were late and so only heard the cheers as the handcarts came into the valley. Luckily they came back out of the valley and then parked, so we got to watch them anyway.

The whole experience earned a front page story on two newspapers. I cannot find the second one on the web, but you can read the article by the Nashua Telegraph. They also shot some nice video:

For those of you who are not LDS and/or not from the Nashua Stake: Jay Cooprider is my dad, and he is the current ecclesiastical leader for the stake. I just don't want you to get confused with all the Coopriders floating around.

Buying a house

NOTE: This is a repost of a post I am deleting. You may have noticed that I am having some malware issues with this blog. . .

It has been a long time between posts. I've been busy. Unfortunately (for anyone hoping I'll post to my blog), it looks like I will stay really busy until November-ish, at least. We have put an offer on a house, negotiated with the sellers, had our offer accepted, conducted a home inspection, renegotiated with the sellers, and now look like all is set for our purchase and sale. I will not be discussing the specifics on my blog (at least not until we close), but it has been and continues to be an emotionally draining and time consuming experience.

I will say right now that I did not expect the process to be so emotionally draining. I knew we were supposed to not get attached. We were going into the process with continued renting as a perfectly viable fall back option, so there should have been no pressure. When push came to shove, though, emotions still kicked in and uncertainty runs high. We feel like we have found a great home that will become our own, but it is definitely a fixer upper. For now I am looking at it like an exciting adventure. We'll see what I am saying about it this winter.

The process of choosing a mortgage has not been any easier. Luckily, that is mostly a matter of crunching the numbers and picking the one which comes out on top. We had a number of referrals and one of them ended up giving us the best deal. We expect everything to go well with that. Assuming it does, I will definitely blog about it later.

This will probably be my last mortgage and house post until after we close on August 25th. Then I will be very busy fixing the house and getting it ready for winter, so I will hopefully write more about the whole process in the fall. Maybe I'll blog about other things in the interim, but I will be a bit busy. Should probably start packing. Should probably have started packing a week ago.

Fenway Precise Seating

I was recently introduced to a cool tool for Red Sox fans: Precise Seating. From the website:

Precise Seating is committed to providing detailed seating information for Red Sox fans attending Fenway Park. Information that you can use to see precisely where you will be sitting. A 2D map shows your seat, any obstructions, distances, viewing angle problems, walkway advisories and much more. Please make use of our site to gain all the information you'll need before you purchase seats at Fenway Park.

The entire park is rendered and then the user can see the point-of-view from any seat. The page indicates obstructions and their effect. For example, here is a picture of Grandstand 12 Row 5 Seat 12:

So go and check it out. Next time you win a chance purchase special seats it can help you make the most of the opportunity.

Return of the favicon

In my most recent blog redesign I finally got my favicon working correctly. What is a favicon? It is the little icon that identifies the site in the browser. Internet Explorer and Firefox show them in the tabs and in the search bar, while Chrome just shows them in the tabs, and Safari just shows them in the search bar. Who cares about what Opera does? Mine is a small version of my WeeWorld avatar.

I initially found a partial solution a couple of blog redesigns ago. However, it only seemed to work some of the time on some browsers. After fiddling with a number of different tutorials and icon converters, I found this Fix for "missing" favicon post. The previous tutorials I had followed had me put the code in the wrong place. The correct location is immediately before the close of the header as opposed to the beginning.

Tech news

My sister-in-law has a saying: "I have my finger on the pulse of America!" Whether or not that is true can be debated. I am definitely not one who can judge, since I am not even sure where America's pulse could be located (Everybody Votes on the Wii thinks I am very far away from popular opinion). This got me thinking about my niche. What does one do to keep their finger on pulse of Tech or Social Media? Feel free to share thoughts in the comments. Below is what I came up with. First I'll list the ones I actually use:

• twit.tv and TWiT in particular. Although not everything that flows out of the TWiT cottage is gold, most of it is pretty good. It also comes in easily-listened-to podcasts.
  
• Digg. The democratization of the news. Good stories are voted up, bad stories are voted down (a.k.a. "buried"). The best stories make it to the front page, where web servers go to be brought down by the massive Digg visits.
  
• Google News. Google aggregates news stories from wherever it can find them and puts them in one place. You can search for topics, or just see what comes up.
  
• Tekzilla. Tekzilla covers "hands on reviews of the latest gear, tips and tricks that improve the tech you already own and conversations with the most informative experts around."
  
• Engadget. I mostly use this for live event blogs (like of the keynote at Apple's WWDC), but the rest of stuff is interesting/good too.
  
• Twitter. For up to the minute information about what is going on in the world, follow the correct people/organizations on Twitter and let the good times roll!
  
• FriendFeed. Like Twitter, only with more features, fewer users, and an even geekier crowd.
  

Now for the ones I do not use regularly that I think have their supporters:

• Slashdot. I mostly missed the Slashdot generation. Editors play a more significant part in Slashdot, I believe.
  
• Gawker. I used to check in on valleywag. I'm not proud of that.
  
• TechCrunch. Mike Arrington is supposedly a big shot, but since I mostly affiliate with the TWiT army I do not really pay attention to trolls.
  
• del.icio.us. I used to use this, but I never really caught the vision for the social networking part. I used to use it for bookmarking, but I have since moved on to other methods.
  
• cnet. Tech news stories, reviews, blogs, forums, and product picks. Or something like that.
  
• StumpleUpon. I've never used it, but it seems to be another big way for sharing via social media.
  
• Yahoo Buzz. A Digg clone put out by Yahoo. I've heard some people say this has more users than Digg thanks to the Yahoo brand.
  

Like I said at the beginning: Think I am missing something important? Feel free to add it in the comments.

Six online sites for personal branding

I felt pretty bad that my initial post on personal branding was an epic fail. However, after watching how mainstream media also had an epic fail, I do not feel so bad. This post is also on personal branding, but I am not going to attempt to explain it again. This time I am just listing six important places a modern professional should establish his or her brand online:

• A website - Here is my website. It is not very mature (although I have various old ones scattered across the web), but it is my current site. A website does not need to have all sorts of bells and whistles, but it should be some place that your online presence may call home. There are a number of free web hosting services. If you get serious, you should probably get a domain name too.
• A blog - You are reading my blog. A blog is more dynamic than a website. Like websites, there are a number of free blogging services, Blogger and Wordpress being the most popular. It is easier to generate content for a blog than for a site. A blog can showcase your writing, which is valuable in any line of work.
• Twitter - My Twitter handle is @ncooprider. Twitter has the ability to reach many people really quickly. The commitment level is less than with a blog or with Facebook, so your Twitter-network can include people you do not know and you can send out less-than-stellar tweets. Twitter can drive traffic to your site and blog, or just serve as a medium for crowd sourcing.
• A Google Profile - Here is my Google profile. It is yet to be seen if this thing will really take off, but I think it is a valuable tool. You can see from my profile that my web presence was a little crazy, and this allows me to consolidate and clarify. This is crucial if your online brand extends beyond one or two services (which it must do to have real reach).
• LinkedIn - Here is my LinkedIn profile. This is the professional social networking site. It may not pack the power of Facebook, but it makes that up in focus. Keeping a resume online here is easy and effective (last month I got a call from recruiters through this and I am not even looking for a job).
• Facebook - My Facebook username is ncooprider. I got my first job out of school through Facebook. It is the biggest kid on the block. Some people hate it and there are a lot of things which are annoying about it, but it still lives up to its name.

There are many others that are useful, but these were the six I feel every professional should use. That goes double if the person is looking for a job, and triple if that person is in tech, media, or both. Think I am wrong? Post a comment!

Personal branding

The recent move by Facebook to allow the selection of usernames has prompted some to ask: why? The answer is personal branding.

Your online presence is part of your brand. I would argue that it is a very significant part. How much you care about or publicize that brand depends on a number of factors. One thing to note, however, is that a quality brand must be built up over time. In other words, it is easier to gradually build up and maintain your online presence than to find yourself needing one and thinking "hmmm, maybe I'll try the internet now."

Why would you need one? Well, I found my current job (it found me) through my online presence (facebook). You can make money with a strong enough brand through blogging or online content. Your online brand can help grow your online social network beyond your physical social network.

Getting a username is like having a professional logo for a business. A business could just write their name in Helvetica and be done with it. The same information gets conveyed, and people can find them. However, a nice logo grabs people's attention, and a nice sign will make it easier to find while driving past it.

Think about it in terms of trademark. Why do companies fight so hard to keep their trademark? In our information age the ability to reach down to individuals has multiplied exponentially. Do you want somebody infringing on your personal trademark? What about if that infringement affects your future job search? Your spouses future job search? Your children's future job search?

Here are some additional places to look on wikipedia:

• personal branding,
  
• online identity management, and
  
• reputation management.

Related to this topic is the idea of finding a market for quality content. I wrote a blog post about it. Only the paradigm shift is that you are the content!

Google Analytics

I wouldn't call myself a "fan" of Jason Calacanis, but I must admit he has a ton more experience and credentials than I do. One of the things I've heard him endorse a number of times is Google Analytics.

I do not know much about the service except that it is a service by Google for analyzing web traffic. It is ridiculously easy to set up on Google Sites. Just remember that it might take a day or so for it to register in the Analytics dashboard. It is also really easy to set up the service for Blogger blogs.

Analytics seems to measure real traffic, while Google's Webmaster Toolkit keeps track of how Google views your site. I do not really know more about how to leverage them, yet.