Supergeekblog

First, let me say, if you haven’t heard about the HP Magic Giveaway contest yet… go look at it! HP is having 50 different bloggers around the world give away $6,000 worth of computer equipment. It is a pretty cool (and fun) contest. I have entered a few of the contests, though haven’t won yet. (We can all hope right?)

Really the best part of this contest for me has been discovering some new blogs. This has been probably my favorite discovery so far. As you will see by the name, and looking through the site, they are a “fire family.” The husband (called FireDad on the site) is a 26 year old career firefighter. The wife (aka FireMom) is a 27 year old freelance writer and mother of 2. So seeing similar ages, interests, blogging, and loving all things department related, perked my interest to the site right away.

They are starting their contest today: Stop, Drop, and Blog. Here is the post for the HP contest. (Each site has their own rules, so make sure to read the contest rules before commenting.)

Disclamer: this post counts as an additional entry to the contest… but I also thought it would be fun to share how winning (if chance likes me) would impact my family, friends, and readers.

First, I would replace our aging family laptop, but more importantly I would give one to my wife so she can finally have her own computer. (Neither is in the Christmas budget this year.)

Secondly, I would see if anything would be of use to my (fire) dept. - I am guessing the photosmart the guys would have a lot of fun with and actually use productively. (Well sometimes.)

Last, I would share online as well by having a contest of my own on supergeekblog.com - not only would it be a blast, bring a lot of new readers, but someone I don’t even know would have a better holiday season as well.

So winning would have a positive, lasting, impact on myself and others. I encourage everyone to head on over and check out the Stop, Drop, and Blog site. It is a blast

Cross Post from Olorinpc.com

Technorati Tags: HP Magic, Supergeekblog, Contest, Jake Barnard, Olorinpc

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I just thought I would do a quick 100th post. Actually for Supergeekblog it is the 287th total post.

Supergeekblog first went live on September 1st, 2005 with three editors. Olorinpc (me), ThatEdeGuy, and Irrision. Due to different projects and whatnot, SGB kind of withered away for a year with minimal posting. A few months ago I resurrected it and have been working on building it back up since.

Here is how the site has looked in the past:

Nov. 2005

Jul. 2006

Jul. 2008

Nov. 2008+

You are looking at it!  I am still making tweaks to the template.  I started with one I liked and then I am ending up rewriting chunks of it as I see fit.  (I have rewritten quite a few of the pages/functions at this point.)

Well I hope you enjoyed that little look back at SuperGeekBlog and I hope you continue to visit in the future!  If you have seen all 4 revisions of the site - you clearly have and it is appreciated!

Technorati Tags: Supergeekblog, Olorinpc, Jake Barnard, ThatEdeGuy, Irrision

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This morning, I read a post by ThatEdeGuy on his twitter reflections.  Now around a month ago we had been discussing Twitter and how we didn’t really see the point, but let’s give it a shot.  I personally had tested Plurk before, but found it clunky and just didn’t keep up with it.  So like Ede, I anticipate having issues with keeping updated with it.  I use text enough, but I tend to notice a long lag time between txting in a tweet and actually seeing the update.  So don’t often.

I have found myself using Twitter much *much* more than I thought I would.  Twitterfox has had a lot to do with that of course.  Firefox is always open, whether at home or at work.  I have discovered that it isn’t as disruptive as I thought it would be to getting actual work done.  That being said, it is fairly addictive as I try to make sure I keep updated and follow along with other conversations.

ThatEdeGuy out it well:

Twitter is somewhat addictive.  It’s way more conversational than a blog or any other website.  It’s the closest thing to a IM client that there is currently available.  The nice thing is that you can “follow” several conversations at once without a separate window open for each and also, without the clutter that having all those conversations would be in one place.  They are still in one “stream” but, with the @ reply function, it makes it much easier to find the twits that are aimed at you and those that belong to a different conversation.

I have noticed moderate trafic from Twitter URL’s, so I believe there is potential there the more one grows their followers.  Growth from 1 follower and 1 post to 42 followers and 189 posts might also have something to do with that.  I am finding it quite enjoyable… there are a number of people who are not only fun to follow, but extremely helpful as well. (@wilw and @problogger being a couple persons of note.)

If you haven’t already found my Twitter via the sidebar… here is the link:

http://www.twitter.com/olorinpc

Ede’s Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/thatedeguy

Technorati Tags: Twitter, ThatEdeGuy, Supergeekblog, Olorinpc

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I have yet to create a custom background for my Twitter page.  However being on my second week of really diving into Twitter, I have noticed other bloggers and big time Twitter folks take the time to customize their background.

There seems to be a basic convention to it, and I have to admit it makes it look more professional/more information/and generally more appealing.

Here are some great resource links that I found while researching this:

Twitter Background Using Powerpoint

Twitter Background Using Photoshop (template)

Twitter Background Image

There are quite a few more out there.  I am thinking I will start with something fairly basic using the PowerPoint methedology, and time permitting work on something a little more flashy via Photoshop.

Technorati Tags: twitter, supergeekblog, olorinpc, template, design

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I normally don’t plug (pun intended) too many Wordpress plugins, but this is the second one I have discovered this week that I installed right away.  This stats plugin impressed me with it’s layout immediately after installing.  It is called CyStats.

It integrates right into the WP-Admin section and starts recording data right away.  As a stats junky (my day job is reporting/business advisor/analyist/report development) I really like having this information at my fingertips.  Now I do use Feedburner, and there are some stats available there, but I like this built in site-wide stats viewing.  I encourage you to check it out and possibly install it yourself.  (Feel free to leave reviews or other recommendations.)

Technorati Tags: CyStats, Wordpress, Wordpress Plugins, Supergeekblog, Olorinpc, Jake Barnard

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For fellow bloggers out there, I found a pretty nifty plugin/app.  It allows you to moderate your comments right from your desktop.  (Instead of either logging in manually or waiting for the queue email.)

Depending on the volume of comments, may or may not be worth the time.  However it certainly is worth taking a look at to see if it would be useful for you.

Technorati Tags: wordpress, supergeekblog, olorinpc, comments, moderating

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Well - I have finally given up and gotten sucked into Twitter. I had tested Plurk for a little while, but just found I didn’t use it and didn’t know that many people on it. However, I have a few people I already follow on Twitter, so have started to make use of it.

Anyone else out there using Twitter or Plurk?  Like it, Hate it, or just eh?

Here is my Twitter page - check it out, follow, etc (Original post from olorinpc.com)

Technorati Tags: twitter, follow, olorinpc, Jake Barnard

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The “Geek Dad” blog has a great post today on the “5 Signs President-Elect Obama is a Geek.” Now whether or not you were an Obama supporter, I think some of the are both funny and good.

I think one thing all of us geeks can agree on, we have been horribly lacking in elected officials who understand tech, techies, and the web.

I had forgotten that Obama is a trekkie… that one brought a smile.  Anyways, head on over there to take a look.  It is worth the time.

Technorati Tags: geek, Obama, President-Elect, Supergeekblog, Olorinpc, Trekkie, tech news

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Well the election is over. Whether or not you like how the vote turned out, we have a new President-Elect. Obama pulled out a huge victory, by an even greater margin than I suspected. Looking back over the past year or two, I think the thing that has impressed me the most is how many people actually took an active part in our political process. Many people were first time voters. Even people who weren’t voting for the first time, this election season made them research the issues and learn more about candidates than ever before.

For geeks like me, I am sure there will be plenty of political stuff to still write about… which is why this comic from XKCD.com made me smile this morning:

So enjoy your day - political ad free!  [Post originally from olorinpc.com - find more politically related posts there!]

Technorati Tags: elections, xkcd, olorinpc

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I have seen this a couple of times now, but it is a useful service.  Now the intended use is to see what sites your user name is available or taken on.  I would also point out that it is useful to tell if you have lost or forgotten about a site you registered on.

Robin on TechCrunch has a good post on it - and the site itself can be found here.  Check it out and see if your default username is in use somewhere.

Check your usernames

Technorati Tags: usernamecheck, supegeekblog, supergeek, olorinpc, techcrunch

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