Dear WordPress,

Thank you for helping me solve a problem that it took almost a year for me to solve – consolidation of my live spaces blog and my blogspot page to produce one source of the truth. It was not easy, but I’m glad that the blogosphere that you reside in and google were available to help me close this chapter.

I credit this nifty little tool for helping me with the migration – http://suncan.net/2009/04/live-space-saver-v103-capable-to-export-comments/. Comments were able to come over automatically – the only work I had to do was ensure that my date fields were consistent in live spaces to ensure that the API could pick up my posts dating back to 2006.

Social media is the new shiny toy that everyone around me, professional or otherwise is gravitating towards. I was able to use wordpress’ stats to prove out that a simple push to various social media sites can drive traffic back to the blog. I pushed two of my recent posts to Twitter and Facebook and saw an immediate uplift in traffic from these sites. I’m slowly buying into this as the new shiny toy with little cost of entry and the opportunity to get instant feedback, if someone cares enough to give it to you.

Microsoft Live Spaces Blog | LANWANMAN’S Space:

LANWANMAN'S Space

LANWANMAN’s Space blog on Microsoft Live Spaces. Free hosting courtesy of Microsoft. Hmmm . . . haven’t done much with this since it opened April 2009.

I don’t profess to being a blogging expert, far from it. But despite the infrequency of my posts I do consider myself to be one (small) step up from beginner, and from that lofty vantage point I feel 100% qualified to offer sage advise to newbies. So here goes…

Why blog?

Simple huh? Why not? Actually there could be many reasons for blogging. Maybe you just want your 15 minutes of fame, maybe as a communication tool for a business, group or sport team, maybe to share your great and infinite wisdom with the unwashed masses. The reasons people blog are as varied as the people themselves.

Blogging sites

Next you’ll be needing somewhere to host your blog. Don’t worry, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist or be bank-rolled by a millionaire to get started. WordPress.com and Blogger are just a couple of free options.

I started out using Windows Live Spaces. For me it wasn’t a smart choice, but if you’re just blogging for family and friends it might be the right fit for you.

Got the look?

Your blog is yours, right? So it shouldn’t look like anyone’s else’s. While the default theme is functional and looks just fine, you should take a little bit of time looking though some of the other included templates and play around with a little customisation. Just remember the K.I.S.S. rule.

Get connected

If you have a twitter account, a Facebook page, a YouTube channel etc, there’s a pretty good chance that you can link them.

For instance…

• When I post to this blog, it automatically tweets a link
• When I tweet, my Facebook status gets automatically updated
• At the end of the day (I’ve set it for 21:00) LoudTwitter bundles up all my tweets for the day and posts them as a blog entry (which in turn tweets that I’ve blogged, which then updates my Facebook)

This way I’m always posting, even when I’m not posting.

Publish. Publish. Publish.

Of course the whole point of having a blog is to blog. So get writing and posting already. Just make sure you think about subject categories on your blog, and always tag your posts so that people can find what you’ve written.

If you don’t like the built-in editor that your blogging service provides you, you might want to check out some offline blogging editors. Personally I use and recommend Windows Live Writer. It’s free and works with pretty much any blogging service.

Happy blogging

This has been a long time coming, but I finally found a way to get all my posts (yeah… all 23 of them) from my Live Spaces blog over to WordPress (check here if you’re interested).

Anyway, now my blog is on a real blogging platform. Will I blog more often? Who knows? But here I am. I’m not 100% sold on the theme yet, so it may change a little until I’m totally happy. Happy reading.

¡¡¡ Bienvenid@s tod@s a CUMBRES CANARIAS !!!

¡¡¡ De TODO un POCO y rienda suelta a mis pensamientos, sentimiemtos y emociones !!!

¡¡¡ Estoy con Obras de reforma y decoraciòn !!! Tengo nueva casa !!!

¡¡¡ Disculpen los ruidos y las molestias !!!

`•.¸.•´

Ilusionada con este nuevo proyecto, también es verdad  no es tan fàcil migrar a una nueva plataforma, dejar atràs tres años de mucho trabajo, de aprendizaje y de ilusiones; y còmo no… empezar de nuevo !!! Visto lo visto, mira que te mira y busca que te busca…  lo he hecho; abriendo tambièn un espacio en blogger http://lenabuena.blogspot.com/ titulado “Leña Buena” (la “ñ” parece que no existe por estos mundos); la idea es que cada uno de ellos tenga su propia filosofìa, y en ello estoy!!! …creo que puedo decir que nunca abandonamos totalmente!!!

Y digo yo… ¿¿¿ Ha llegado la nueva Inquisiciòn Virtuàl ??? !!! Todo nuestro Legado; nuestro Patrimonio històrico, artìstico y cultural en todas sus manifestaciones y expresiones; son Obras de Arte universalmente reconocidas y se las considera pornogràficas y/o de mal gusto; a critetrio del visitante y a los “ojos” del censor, entre otras !!! …debido a la censura indiscriminada de imágenes, absurda y sin sentido que està “ofertando” microsoft a sus usuarios en Windows Live Spaces; no hay voluntad real de querer resolver el asunto planteado; BASTA YA DE CENSURA !!! Se cierran blogs a destajo, sin previo aviso; en fin…; y microsoft hace oidos sordos !!! Soporte técnico no es “capaz” de comprobar y verificar las denuncias? ¡¡¡ Ciega, sorda y muda !!! La actitud de microsoft està complicando mucho y cada vez màs la convivencia en Live Spaces y se hace insoportable, incidiendo èsta directamente en los usuarios; crispaciòn, reivindicaciones y huelgas !!!  ¡¡¡  Las reivindicaciones con respecto a la Censura en Live Spaces http://usuarioscontralacensura.spaces.live.com/ estàn muy claras !!!Por si no se habìan dado cuenta… ¡¡¡ Hablamos de mayorìa de usuarios y no de minorìas gobernantes !!!

Què nos quieren vender? Acaso la tan aireada “seguridad en la red para los menores” de la que tanto gusta bla, bla, bla…!!! La permisividad de microsoft para abrir espacios con contenido de pornografia infantil està clara ; se han hecho dnuncias muy graves http://www.mmadrigal.com; pero estos blogs sì siguen abiertos; Microsoft Ibèrica “promete”… y como siempre las palabras se las llevará el viento!!! Tiempo al tiempo!!! Y hasta qué punto se implican los medios de comunicación en estos temas? …mmm!!!

¡¡¡ Y desde luego que pretendo disfrutar aùn màs, si cabe; permanecerè por un espacio de tiempo, nosè cuànto…; el tiempo por sì solo, cantarà!!!; …quiero a mi blog, siento mi blog, adoro esas fragancias y esos aromas que se me acercan, y me tocan, y me besan, y me abrazan; me muestro como soy, tal cuàl, con mis berrinches, mis crìticas, mis ìmpetus, mis làgrimas, mis fantasias, mis sueños, mis risas; siempre sincera, honesta, y leal con mis amigos; amiga de mis amigos, los que estàn, los que se fueron, los que volveràn, los que irè conociendo ¡¡¡

¡¡¡ Gracias por estar siempre ahì !!! Aùn ando algo perdida por estos lares, dale que te dale botòn pa’rriba botòn pa’bajo y vaya con los dichosos códigos; ya le iremos cojiendo el tranquillo; … momentos quizàs de no mirar atràs y sì hacia adelante sin prisas pero sin pausa!!! ¡¡¡Engrasando la maquinaria; nos vemos !!!

¡Te dejo un càlido y fuerte abrazo!

`•.¸.•´

•*´¨`*•Nyn•*´¨`*•

For our grade.* Changes between June and July 2009.

WordPress: 7 -> 11.5 (+3 new, +2 (BS) +0.5 (LS) -1 (Tb) transition)
Blogspot: 8 -> 7  (+1 new, -2 (WP) transition)
Tumblr: 1 -> 3 (+1 new, +1 (WP) transition)
Live Spaces: 2 -> 2.5 (+1 new, -0.5 (WP) transition)

Total blogs: 18 -> 24 (+6 new)

*stats based on blogs that I actually know about.

Graphs made by Chart Maker.

Wow, it seems that blogs have been springing up left right an center in our grade. 18 now (1 Tumblr, 2 Live Spaces, 7 WordPress, 8 Blogspot), at last count. We should really do some sort of WordPress vs Blogspot battle thing post-trials

The snowball effect. Here’s a video that demonstrates the idea perfectly.

This guy did a decent analysis of it.

Inshalla’s growing on me. I don’t think it’s as good as Black Fingernails, Red Wine (the album – which is considerably more sombre than Inshalla) though, which would probably rate up there as one of my top 5 (if not #1) albums. I really loved the piano/keyboard driven style of BFRW. But the standout songs to me so far on the new album would have to be Foreign Land (which I’m still loving, even after it reaching #1 on my Last.fm), Inshalla and Don’t Let Me Down (you can listen to some on EskimoJoe.net). On a related note, Eskimo Joe has eclipsed Coldplay on my Last.fm, to be #1 (and would probably be higher had I been scrobbling when BFRW came out).

I think I might go on blog hiatus for a while. This stuff is really procrastinaty, and there’s so much to do.

I have been using Windows Spaces for almost a year now and have been waiting patiently for several feature improvements.. Most notably

1. Ability for anonymous users to leave comments
2. Better statistics reporting
3. Greater degree of support from Non IE browsers

Today, I decided that it is time to move on to a better service. After lots of searching, I finally landed on “WordPress”. I thought I would have a hard time exporting my posts from spaces(live.com).. but this website has very good information on porting blogs out of Live Spaces.

1. Go into your Spaces account – General settings and change the default date format to mm/dd/yy like so:

2. Download the ‘live-space-mover’ application. This contains the python file that emits XML for our import process

3. Download Python 2.6.2 Windows installer. Accept the default settings and install Python on your computer. The python interpreter is required to execute .py files. It installed to C:\Python26 on my computer. This directory location is important!

4. Download the ‘BeautifulSoup’ python parser. This is a library that is invoked from live-space-mover to actually go to the spaces site and download blogs (the XML file just contains hyperlinks). I used version 3.0.6 and it worked perfectly!

5. Now, Move the BeautifulSoup file and the ‘Line-Space-Mover.py’ file into the C:\Python26 folder like so:

6. Open a command window (start->run->cmd) and navigate to C:\Python26. Then, type in the following command:

python live-space-mover.py -s http://yourid.spaces.live.com/

If the process ran correctly, you will get a ‘success’ message and an XML file will be created in the directory C:\Python26. (If there was an error message regarding the date/time format, please make sure you executed Step 1 correctly.

7. Once you have the XML file, you are ready to have WordPress import your Spaces blogs. Create an account at WordPress.com

8. After logging in to to your account, in the dashboard, click on Tools->Import

9. Click on ‘WordPress’. Then Click on the ‘Browse’ button and point to the newly created XML file (from step6)

10. Click on ‘Upload file and Import’ button.. All your blog postings will be transferred over!

If you are looking for an awesome client to help manage your blogs, look no further.. download Windows Live Writer. It is capable of interacting with various blogging services and WordPress is one of them. Happy blogging!

Estadísticas de las redes sociales en el mundo. Recuperat el 20 de maig de 2009, de http://www.bits20.com/302/estadisticas-de-las-redes-sociales-en-el-mundo.html

Finalmente,la scelta di passare a WordPress.
Ho avuto diversi “blog”: dal classico Windows Live Spaces -piattaforma gratuita messa a disposizione agli utenti registrati a MSN- a un più creativo MySpace; li ho trovati entrambi molto dispersivi,utili a mostrare le foto delle proprie vacanze piuttosto che a creare discussioni e confronti costruttivi tra le persone.E il paradosso è che,soprattutto quest’ultimo,nasce come social network.
Ovviamente si tratta di gusti ed esigenze personali. MySpace può essere un ottimo biglietto da visita,utile soprattutto a chi vuole far conoscere la propria musica (molti gruppi sono nati proprio grazie al web,ad esempio gli Arctic Monkeys): in poche parole,non per me.
Il blog vero e proprio è racchiuso in una specie di widget laterale che mostra unicamente i titoli dei post,rendendolo un elemento marginale e visualizzabile solo andando intenzionalmente ad aprirlo a parte.
Quella che sarà per me una novità con WordPress,è lo stile dei post:non sono abituata a trattare argomenti di attualità,a creare argomenti di discussione,ad aggiornamenti periodici e regolari (benchè non vi siano regole prefissate,noto che sono comunque queste le tendenze dei blogger); è la mia occasione per condividere pensieri che vanno oltre ai miei stati d’animo,per mettermi in discussione,per raccontare e raccontarmi.
Con queste considerazioni,ho brevemente mostrato “perché sono qui” (più che altro,era anche un pretesto per sperimentare le varie funzioni relative alla pubblicazione degli articoli !); “chi sono”,invece,ve lo lascerò scoprire boccone per boccone.
Tania R.

Social media is a great thing, with one huge downside: overload. Let’s face it, there are just too many social media sites to splash one’s life across the Internet with. And new start-ups sprout every day it seems.

I decided it’s time to pare down my regular dose of social media to a far more manageable morsel instead of gluttonizing on every new site that shows up on the landscape and cancel/remove accounts I’m really not using with any regularity or that just duplicates other sites I’m more active on.

(I’m sure "gluttonizing" is a word, isn’t it? If not, someone needs to add it to the dictionary.)

So, here’s my new, slimmed-down social media stop list, consisting of one site from each area of the social universe that I care about.

• This blog, of course (dropped Live Spaces, My Opera, etc.)
• Facebook (dropped MySpace)
• Twitter (dropped Tumblr, Plurk, Pownce, iRovr, etc.)
• Flickr (dropped Picasa)
• Last.fm (dropped Pandora)
• YouTube (dropped Vimeo, Viddler, etc.)
• Seesmic (even though I haven’t posted any video there in months, but I may still have a use for it)
• AudioBoo (dropped Utterli)
• Friendfeed to tie it all together in one place.

Da qualche giorno ho cominciato seriamente ad allargare i miei orizzonti di lettura degli altri blog, andando a spulciare un pò tutta la Rete.
Questo non perché quelli dei miei contatti qui su Live Spaces non siano interessanti, ma semplicemente perché mi piace andare a curiosare le notizie che ci sono su tutti i blog sparsi per il web.
La prima cosa a cui ho pensato e che mi ha fatto accendere una lampadina, è la possibilità consentita da quasi tutte le varie piattaforme blog, di lasciare commenti.
Mi spiego meglio: non importa che tu sia o non sia iscritto ad una determinata piattaforma perchè chiunque avrà sempre la possibilità di lasciare un commento ed esprimere il proprio pensiero.
Purtroppo questo non accade con i nostri Blog. Nonostante noi possiamo scegliere di rendere pubblico a tutti il nostro profilo, se ipoteticamente in questo mio post un certo signor “X” volesse lasciare un commento, non potrebbe farlo a meno che non sia iscritto ad Hotmail.
Infatti, solo se si ha un account Hotmail è possibile commentare nei vari blog di Live Spaces, al contrario ci si dovrà limitare ad una semplice lettura.
Mi sto rendendo conto che questa è una cosa molto limitativa.
Sto pensando a tutte quelle persone che magari capitando nel mio blog avrebbero voluto scrivere qualcosa ma non potevano farlo per questo motivo che ho appena spiegato.
Solamente ora ho capito il perchè di alcune e-mail da persone che non conoscevo, le quali mi scrivevano in riferimento a qualche mio post (lo hanno fatto per lo più su quelli riguardanti l’ambito informatico: messenger, windows, etc etc).
E ad oggi che mi ritrovo a navigare tra i blog di gente sconosciuta, capisco davvero quanto questa possibilità sia utile ed anche necessaria.
Mi sento come chiuso in un mondo in cui le porte sono aperte solo ai “prediletti” detentori di un account hotmail.
E forse potrebbe essere anche questa una delle ragioni che potrebbe spingermi ad un avvicinamento verso altre piattaforme (WordPress in primis, che appunto permette di commentare anche senza relativo account).
Poichè però ci tengo moltissimo a questo mio Spazio, credo proprio che farò una proposta allo staff, anche se già immagino la risposta.
PENSO SIA GIUNTO IL MOMENTO DI APRIRE UN Pò LE FRONTIERE, soprattutto se vogliamo che i Windows Live Spaces continuino a mantenere una minima considerazione sul Web.
Per essere chiaro fino in fondo su quanto sto dicendo, vi lascio qui di seguito un esempio di FORM che si può trovare sui vari blog della rete, un form che una volta compilato, in modo molto rapido, consente di scrivere ciò che si vuole.

Un informazione per tutti quelli che hanno un account Hotmail: per verificare ciò che sto dicendo, vi basterà disconnettervi dal vostro Space e provare a commentare questo post. Vi sarà impossibile e vi verrà richiesto di accedere. (Bruttissimo!).

Cosa ne pensate voi? Meglio una ristretta cerchia, o meglio aprire le porte anche agli sconosciuti?

Sim, sou entusiasta das redes sociais. Não exatamente das redes sociais, mas do conceito de redes na net. Demorei a aceitar entrar no Orkut, mas depois passei a conhecer melhor. Não vou defender o Orkut aqui, mas o conceito das redes. Ainda não tenho conta no Hi5, Facebook, MySpace. A do LiveSpaces, tenho porque a Microsoft criou sozinha. Mas depois desses, virei entusiasta do Via6, uma rede profissional criada por dois jovens estudantes paulistanos.

Atualmente a que mais me impressiona é o LinkedIn. Tenho conta lá há mais de 1 ano, mas só nas últimas semanas passei a utilizar de verdade. E me apaixonei! Não somente a forma sóbria como as coisas são feitas (sem as fotos de decotes e os recadinhos bisbilhotados do Orkut), mas os assuntos tratados, a prontidão em responder, os temas das “comunidades” (que lá são chamados grupos), as recomendações (feitas por quem – de fato – conhece seu trabalho). O que mais me tem deixado boquiaberto, porém, é a possibilidade de novos contatos profissionais. E isso não é apenas observação, é experiência vivida!

Nas duas últimas semanas, através do LinkedIn, fiz dois excelentes contatos profissionais. Um deles foi um convite para participar de um Handbook com um capítulo no livro. Uma publicação internacional, por uma editora renomada e de um assunto que a Terra Brasilis sequer está atenta ainda. O outro contato pode ter impacto profissional e academico também. Teremos uma reunião nesta semana para saber. De qualquer forma, dois contatos valiosos em duas semanas não me parece algo a se ignorar.

Não é a toa que  é a 5ª maior rede social do mundo. Quem quiser, me encontrá lá.

Desde el siguiente enlace podéis acceder a las fotos que realicé en el 2005 en Bremen (Alemania):

Albúm de fotos de Bremen.

Otras fotos de Alemania en este blog.

Como introducción la siguiente foto:

Escultura de Roland de Bremen en la Markplatz.

CC martin_javier #2005

I was waiting for some great idea to hit me and I’d have a humorous entry worthy of your precious blog-reading time. Nothing has hit me.

Sorry.

I tried; really, I did.

I didn’t want to talk about the BYU-Utah game because Kaakun already said enough. Or perhaps Hall threw the game on purpose so that the U could become the biggest donor to BYU’s program via a second trip to a BCS bowl…

I even tried reading old blog entries to spark an idea. And by old, we’re talking an ENTIRE year ago. That was ages and ages ago. Can you believe I’m even still blogging? Since then, though, I’ve had many changes to my eWorld. Or at least, I think there have been. Let’s make a list, how ‘bout?

1. Changed blog hosts, leaving behind the restricted Live Spaces for more freedom from WordPress
2. Ended my use of MSN Messenger following a company lockdown when an IT Support personnel (no less) clicked on a link from an outside contact and started spreading a virus to all his company contacts
3. Now use Communicator at work and therefore no longer know what DFunk is up to
4. Still have a Myspace account, but what’s the use?
5. Probably overuse Facebook for event invitations, sharing pictures and poking people
6. Blog every work day
7. No longer have my own webpage; isn’t a blog as fantastic as mine good enough for you?
8. Log online at home through my very own Comcast connection because I live all alone
9. Use a new online stalking tool: iSearch
10. Neglect my online-hosted email accounts because when I get home from work, all I care to do online is school
11. No longer leave comments on my friends’ blogs (even when I have plenty to say) because they’re all blocked at work
12. Use flickr for all of my online-photo-hosting needs
13. Frequent Google Reader
14. Stopped reading some blogs (like dooce and yourheartout) because for some reason, I got bored of them
15. Stopped reading other blogs (like sarahnielsen and seriouslysoblessed) because they didn’t send entire feeds via RSS (BOO)
16. I now post a Political Link of the Day, but does anybody ever read them? Does anybody even read this blog?
17. And LAST, I’ve found this AMAZING product online that I will purchase for all of the men on my Christmas giving list this year: the Uroclub. For a great image of the club in action, click HERE.

So that was a good list, right? Sure… why not. I thought maybe it would be a better list, but trying to remember what I did a year ago compared to now turned out to be way too much work. Besides, I’m at work and I already have work to do.

Political Link of the Day: “Anatomy of a Meltdown: Ben Bernanke and the Financial Crisis”

Over fifteen months, beginning in August, 2007, the Fed, through various novel programs known by their initials… lent more than a trillion dollars to dozens of institutions… The programs, which have received little public attention, were supposed to be temporary, but they have been greatly expanded and remain in effect.

Since about two years I am running a blog on Parallel Programming over at Live Spaces. As opposed to several friends and colleagues I liked the service, but with a growing number of readers the following three issues really bugged me:

• Only people logged in with a Windows Live ID are allowed to comment. From the emails I got this stopped several people from commenting, but did not helped on my following complaint (as this functionality is intended assumingly).
• Most of the comments I get are spam. While that is bad already, there is no function to authorize comments individually, thus I had to remove the spam manually, which is pretty tedious (even error-prone).
• The advertising sometimes was inappropriate. I don’t mind advertising on a free service, I also don’t mind banners of dating services in general. But every now and then when I checked that a blog post is formatted correctly I found some inappropriate banners.

Because of these reasons I did a brief evaluation phase and just now decided to switch to WordPress. Using Wei Wei’s Live Space Mover I imported the last five blog posts (to have some content to be found by search engines) to this blog. I will leave the Live Space alive, but stop blogging to it and disable the comment option.

I hope the people interested in my experiments and findings will follow.