Happy Christmas to you

It is a time when we try to concentrate on the things that really matter in our lives. Our loves, our personal relationships and remembering things past. Unless of course we subscribe to the Scrooge philosophy of Bah Humbug.

Nevertheless after such a year as we have just experienced it is useful to consider the priorities and changes that are occuring so quickly in this day and age and how they effect our “working” life and therefore indirectly our “personal” life.

This morning I got the latest blog from Chris Rand and he was was giving a present for the year end. A little light holiday reading he called it.

Apparantly our good friend Seth Godin has got 70 “big thinkers” to contribute to a free eBook called “What Matters Now” with inspirational articles about “Things to think about (and do) this year”.

Download now!

May we wish all of you and your families every blessing for Christmas and in 2010 every success and prosperity.

For any bloggers and/or writers, or just seasoned web surfers, you’ll know that a lot of script sites exist with anecdotal, educational and often downright funny articles on the art and craft of writing for film/television/radio/microfiction/Twitter.

I hope it won’t disappoint you too much if I admit that I’ve not quite waded through the entirety of it yet myself. There are also sites dedicated just to cataloguing and providing an easily-accessible resource for this information such as my friend Michelle’s Writesofluid resource.

Though it’s not much at the moment, I’ve added a few links to my “Blogs I Like” section. And I do. So check them out. I’ll keep adding to it, and in time I’ll build up my own resource, both writing and link-ing. For now, however, I’ll take advantage of the existing wealth of information on the net, which must be the most insightful grass-roots reference guide I’ve ever seen.

Plus, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the best sites on the web for writing, TV and film, so please nominate your favourites here or get in touch: alexandriahorton@gmail.com.

A new breakthrough secret is all you now need in order to get your Google AdWords pay-per-clicks FREE!

A gentleman from New York discovered what he calls an “oversight” on the part of 99.9% of all marketers that allows him to get otherwise paid-for advertising at Google as well as all other search engines that allow sponsored ads.

And no, nothing about his “secret” is illegal – nor does it require that you know someone on the “inside” at Google, Yahoo, MSN, Overture and others.

Instead, the New Yorker boasts proudly “…this is something that I caught onto just before 2000 when there was so much search engine craze running around, and started doing small just to test things at first … but which I later expanded on after getting the hang of it.”

This same fellow went on to start and operate sixteen separate online companies selling everything from pet food, DVDs, children’s toys & games, books, software, and sold not only his own manufactured products but became an affiliate for other web businesses – all the while applying his mastermind secret.

Over the course of nearly eight years the New Englander confesses “I’ve actually gotten over $87 million in advertising that using my secret I never had to pay for … and the largest share of which was more recently in Google pay-per-clicks as well as other forms of pad advertising at search engines … all of which I got for free …”

So powerful is his secret that he’s able to monopolize any niche online, and can always secure the top premium spots just above the usual organic results featured at most search engines.

He still has to set up an account with the search engines – but after applying his secret he is removed from having to pay for all the costs otherwise involved.
Again, nothing about his secret is either illegal or robs from the search engines.
One spokesperson from one of the most popular search engines said chuckling after being made privy to this amazing secret “Wow! Ha! This is really unique … and in my expert opinion it would only serve to enhance and bring more business to us at [name of search engine withheld for legal & confidentiality reasons] and not cause us to lose business in the slightest. Amazing!”

The northerner revealed that in this nearly eight years’ period of time since applying his secret he’s done well over $300 million in sales revenue with a most diverse line of products, and most recently in the last two years netted nearly $166 million after really “buckling down and pressing my secret to its fullest potential.”

Now to everyone else’s fortune, the city slicker is releasing his secret for getting an unlimited amount of pay-per-click ads to the general public. But he’s not promising any of us for how long.

A bit of an eccentric, the gentleman says “We’ll see just how long I can make it available before it saturates things.”

One famous public web guru pointed out that although this man may gain economically more so as a result of the publication of his secret “he’s already so amazingly rich that whether he continues or discontinues its sale will neither make nor break the man, but not grabbing it for yourself while it’s still available could prove disastrous for you as you may only have one chance, and a very limited one at that, to get this.”

It is currently available at:

http://diyer.freegoogle.hop.clickbank.net

…so you may want to head on over there now and get it.

It’s in a very easily readable format and is quickly and readily understood and mastered by anyone with even a 4th grade reading level.

While you’re there, why not scroll down and review for yourself the huge successes others are now having with this incredible breakthrough in targeted advertising now made freely available to the rest of us?

To your success,

-AP

It seems our government is ignoring all the advice the contrary and public opinion and aiming to introduce mandatory filtering with the legislation coming before parliament later next year. Of course they are hiding behind the child pornography issue but many people don’t realise that much more will be blocked.

The Google blog covered this in a reasonable article here. Well worth your time to read it if you are concerned about basic rights in this country.

Participation requested

Get in there and give your view on our discipline!

“Our ISA” is a community of automation professionals discussing and debating the past, present, and future of the International Society of Automation.  Anyone who has a point to make, a bone to pick, or a wrong to right can do it here.”

Building up ISA

Thus starts a new participatory site for discussing constructively the future of the International Society of Automation (ISA)

The society has been the leading light in automation, especially in the English-speaking world and in the Americas for over sixty years. Recently the changes in communication (like this blog) which is being called Social Media or perhaps more accuractly, Social Networking, have made all of society, business, associations and government look seriously at what they are about. The ISA is no exception.

Gary Mintchel, of Automation Weekly, comments “All organizations seem to go through this at some point. Who owns it? The leadership and staff? Or the members?” The initial posts on this blog seem to be awakening real discussions and suggestions.

In addition the “Global slump” and credit crunch have made what appeared to be permanent and reliable businesses and business models weak and suddenly vulnerable.

We discussed this a few months ago in a blog entitled “Whether ISA!” While things have progressed since then including many painful changes have occurred. However there is always the danger in re-organising entities in times of great change like today of merely tinkering with a model that has proved so successful in the past – building our new business model on the old and let’s face it proven model in the past. But the problem is that the past is not the present. The past doesn’t appear to be working. Who reads newspapers for news now?

So this new site, which, as it says, is independent of, though not inimical to, the ISA, can be a very useful catalyst for change.

So get in there all you automation professionals and spell out your ideas.  Jon DiPietro who has started this initiative explains, “…that’s what it’s all about – spreading ideas.”

Well, exciting to me, anyway.

I’m moving my blog off of WordPress.com and over to my own domain – mylatestobsession.com.

I am looking forward to having more control over my content using self-hosted WordPress, but the real reason for the move is that honestly…how long is this nailpolish mania going to last? Sure, right now I’m all about the nailpolish, but a couple of months ago I was making jewelry, and before that I was making mosaics, and before that…knitting, maybe? I don’t even remember.

Anyway, I figure that on the new domain, I’ll be able to post about all that stuff and not feel guilty because it’s a nail blog and doesn’t belong there.

There’s a new feed for the new site, and I think that current subscribers will need to resubscribe over there. I think. I still don’t entirely understand Feedburner, to be honest, but I HAVE a new feed over there, at least. So please click over to the new site and re-subscribe if you’d like to continue receiving updates!

I’m not entirely done tweaking things over there, appearance-wise, but I spent so much time struggling with WordPress to move my posts over last night that once I finally got it fixed I decided it is TIME TO MOVE so I never have to do that again.

We finally set up our Very Own YouTube Channel. So far it’s just links to some Mercury Retrograde author interviews, but stay tuned…

Because I’m the king of a million-and-one projects, last night I decided to create my own fanzine focusing on superheroes, sci-fi, fantasy and geek culture in general. So, being the good little nerd that I am, I opened up another WordPress account and created the beginnings of a full-fledged geek webzine (with a forthcoming print version) called Canister X, the title a homage to the ooze canister of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the X both for X-men and just simply something that’s unknown and you’ll never know what you’ll find till you look.

The project is still in its beginning stages, but a good chunk of work was done on it last night and I plan on adding more to it later today.

This will be an ongoing thing, so check the site often.

Canister X – Fanzine

Since I’ve been an “adult” and able to sustain on more than Raman, I’ve enjoyed adopting an angel from the Angel Tree every year.  Its a nice way to give back to someone who might not otherwise have a Christmas morning.  And because you are actually handling the shopping yourself, you are able to make sure they are well-stocked with clothing and of course have a few toys to enjoy on Christmas morning.

This year, I had a bit of trouble locating an actual Angel Tree to take an angel and shop for.  Granted, most of the time I am able to find these easily in suburban malls…but if you’ve ever been to NYC, you know that those are not really readily accessible.  So a few weeks ago when I started my search, I started to panic a bit because it was not as easy as I thought.

And then I found the JC Penney Online Angel Tree — (http://angel.jcpenney.com/).

This is an amazing and VERY EASY way to help out this season.  You can do all of your shopping online, in just a few minutes.  Information on your Angel is readily available, and they will ship it (FOR FREE) directly to a local Salvation Army near you (be sure to include your Angel’s ID so that all your gifts get to the correct child). AND, they even give you a promo code to receive a discount.

If you have 10 free minutes, and anything to spare this holiday season, check it out and please give someone a happy Christmas morning if you can.  I grew up with many blessed, exciting and warm/cozy holiday mornings, and what a great thing to share that with just one child if we can.

Happy Christmakkuh all!

In this interview at OryCon last month, Edward Morris, author of There Was a Crooked Man, talks with Bill Johnson from the Willamette Writers’ Conference about the con, writing, and his definition of success. Fantastic!

I just came across a link to something I thought was quite amazing. A man named Rob is camping out near a phone box in the middle of nowhere, and answering any calls he may receive (telephone number on website). Watch the introductory video on the website, and you will then be directed at a live feed direct from location.
View the site at http://phoneboxexperiment.com

Although vaguely aware of it for a while, I have recently been properly introduced to “Second Life” by a good friend of mine, Brian Smith. Essentially Second Life is a virtual world, more complete and accurate to life than I would have imagined it to be. The world is not loaded with the installation of the application. This would be impossible as the content and features seem to be forever changing. Instead a relatively small download is required to be installed, and the content as you move through the world is streamed directly from the internet (much like Google Earth). Fundamentally it is a facility for you to meet, interact and socialise with other people from all over the world, through your Second Life avatar. However, even after spending a relatively small amount of time in this virtual world, it is clear to see that its possibilities and potential range much further than this basic form of interpersonal communication.

First of all, Second Life is big. It is much bigger than you could imagine, and certainly bigger than I thought it could be. At first it’s not obvious how to get around, other than walking around the small introductory island on which you will start. Second Life is made up of thousands upon thousands of islands. Anybody can buy an island and turn it into whatever they want. For example, why not turn an island into a huge clothing shop? It is possible to design clothing and accessories for Second Life avatars, which you can then sell from your virtual shop, to other users. There have been reported cases of people making more than $1,000,000 a year from this virtual environment – amazing. There are bars, discos, and many more things to be discovered. One thing of a particular interest to myself, was the IBM data centre, which you can walk around just as if really there.

The thing that really amazed me though was the functionality to hold virtual meetings within Second Life. You could either buy an island and set up your own meeting room, or hire one of the many that are already available. These meeting rooms are set up with screens at the front for PowerPoint presentations, and video content, and there are chairs to sit and watch. If you are equipped with speakers and a microphone, you can even hear, and ask questions to, the meeting host. Fascinating technology – and it works really well. I hope to soon learn more about the power of Second Life, at which point I’m sure I will report back with anything I have found interesting.

I posted some time ago about Firefox add-ons. One I mentioned was Blank Canvas Gmail Signatures which allowed you to have different signatures for each Gmail account. Unfortunately it is no longer available on the Mozilla site. There is no mention of it on the Blank Canvas site either.

This is a great loss as it is the only Gmail signature add-on that supported multiple accounts. There are other add-ons for signatures but none of them have this feature. The xpi file can still be found on archive sites, a search should bring up a source for you.

Hopefully one of the other add-ons will add this feature or even better Gmail itself will provide it.

So I found a theme! It is the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen. Every other WP theme I’ve tried has been modifiable, but only through editing the PHP and CSS files. And I can do that…but I’m uncomfortable making large changes to someone else’s code, it would take forever unless I built it from scratch myself and knew where everything was and how it was specified…and yeah actually, that would still take forever!

But then I found Atahualpa. Crazy name, but OMIGOODNESS. There are options to edit the theme directly from the WP admin panel. Like, a LOT of options. In fact it’s so thorough that so far, I haven’t found anything that I want to change and can’t. I have not once had to edit a php or CSS file (and I don’t think I would anyway, I suspect making random changes under the hood could really screw this up). It is amazing and awesome. LOOK AT THIS!!!!!

OK, so in nail news, I went to Rite Aid today to pick up a few things. Since when did Rite Aid start selling Sinful Colors? I thought that was a Walgreen’s brand.

I guess I was in a sort of neutral  color mood, huh?

• Wet n Wild Craze in Shield and Goldmine
• Sally Hansen Opulent Cloud
• Wet n Wild Flirt Gumdrop

And also I saw these and couldn’t resist because I can’t figure out how they could possibly work, or even really what they’re supposed to do. And fromt he small amount of testing I’ve done with them so far…my suspicion was right, they’re crap.

Oh, and I am so all over the Zoya Green Friday promotion this week. If Zoya continues to give me free stuff, I might go broke, though.

]]> http://annofone.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/one-lopsided-pot/ Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:10:13 +0000 Deb http://annofone.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/one-lopsided-pot/

Actually, once it was glazed, the lopsidedness of gave it some charm (haha).  The apple appears because my Mom requested something in the picture for scale:

This beauty has already been spoken for by the kind ladies down at the local Starbucks (with a bit of candy inside, it should be highly desirable, right?).

More are coming – and (at least I think) they look a lot better.  I’ve never had so much fun with mud before.  My other project this week has been to write a Paypal IPN script, which I think I might cover in another post, since some of it might be useful to others in the future.

We are nowadays, more frequently hearing stories of disciplinary or other action being taken on individuals, or groups of individuals, by their employers because of comments or content posted on one of the many popular social media websites in use.

There was a story a few weeks ago about a young woman who was asked to leave her employment after posting derogatory comments about her boss onto the FaceBook site, forgetting that she had previously added him as a friend, meaning he would be able to see everything she had written. Then just this weeks, reports of a woman in Canada losing her sick-pay, being paid for depression, because she posted pictures of herself on the internet, again on FaceBook, looking happy. Her medical insurance company came to the conclusion that from looking at these pictures, she was no longer depressed. In a world where more and more people are fully aware of the technology available, and how we use it, it’s not very surprising that more and more people are being subjected to online vetting. It’s well known that when applying for a lot of jobs, HR departments will often perform an internet search to see just who you really are, delving into FaceBook, MySpace, and anywhere else you may have an online presence. These are both real world examples of just what an impact social networking can have on our professional identities.

I think there is another matter though, and it is all to do with workplace productivity. It’s something that I have thought about a couple of times before, but today witnessed something which really got the message across to me. I have been sat in a meeting room in a project planning brief. The room had about 40 people contained within it, all sat in groups of 2, 3, or 4 discussing different aspects of an upcoming project. The chance to have influential people from IT, people from Marketing, people from HR, all in the same room, on the same day has been a wonderful chance to really make some decent progress. However, every time I glanced up across the room, almost every screen I could see either had FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, or another social networking site open. If we take it that there were 40 people in the room for 6 hours each, that’s a total of 240 total man hours. I would love to know just how many of these hours were spent off task, rather than devoted to work. I myself found it so strange, that I immediately opened up Twitter and began to give a running commentary of the events as they unfolded – from the cleaner bursting in, to the lunchtime menu.

At a first glance, this would seem like a very unprofessional attitude and using such sites during company time could even be considered time theft. However, I find myself much more productive if I can send off the odd tweet, or update my FaceBook status. Now I’m not saying I agree with people who sit all day on these sites – but it was a strange experience watching a room of professional people, working hard and making good progress, at the same time as being in contact with colleagues, friends, and family, all over the world. Technology is a wonderful thing, but we should be careful to prevent it from consuming our time.

Coscom Entertainment just created a social network to kick back in, relax, share jokes, talk, vent, promote, whatever.

I got things pretty much set up aside from a few tweaks here and there.

The URL is http://coscomentertainment.ning.com/

It’s free and only takes a minute to set up your profile.

Thanks.

I have recently had several web hosting requirements, and not knowing too much about this area, took the recommendation from a colleague and contacted CS New Media. If anybody has any requirements from something as simple as domain name registration, to hosted Virtual Private Servers, to a full Reseller Package – please do not hesitate to use the wonderful services on offer from CS New Media.

At first, I did not know exactly what I needed in order to get the job done, but Carl from CS New Media was more than happy to provide me with advice without forcibly trying to sell me anything, and this was long into the evening on a Saturday night. I have since had an e-mail management problem (which turned out to be my own fault for mistyping an e-mail address). A quick e-mail to CS New Media saw the problem resolved within the space of five minutes.

I will now recommend CS New Media to you all, and to anybody else that requires any web services, and encourage you to visit them on the web and see what they will be able to do for you.

Another short track I made, this one featuring piano and reverb, with a bit of synth, etc.

As part of my ever-ongoing effort to efficiently market not just myself but Coscom Entertainment on the World Weird Web, my latest effort, as previously reported, has put me on a slim-fast diet of sorts, with me getting rid of a pile of websites that I no longer needed and/or used.

Below is the complete list of everywhere I had an online presence. The ones in bold are the ones that currently remain. The ones struck through have, you guessed it, gone the way of the Dodo.

1.) http://www.apfuchs.com
2.) http://www.axiom-man.com
3.) http://www.undeadworldtrilogy.com
4.) http://www.coscomentertainment.com
5.) http://www.twitter.com/coscomment
6.) http://coscomentertainment.blogspot.com
7.) http://axiomman.blogspot.com
8.) http://www.facebook.com/apfuchs
9.) http://flicksandlitpicks.blogspot.com
10.) http://apfuchs.wordpress.com
11.) http://www.cafepress.com/axiomman
12.) http://www.myspace.com/apfuchs
13.) http://www.myspace.com/axiomman
14.) http://www.comicspace.com/apfuchs
15.) http://morganmandelbooks.ning.com/profile/APFuchs
16.) http://www.squidoo.com/apfuchs
17.) http://www.myspace.com/bloodofthedeadnovel
18.) http://www.comicspace.com/coscomentertainment
19.) http://www.myspace.com/coscomentertainment
20.) http://www.squidoo.com/coscomentertainment
21.) http://www.amazon.com/A.P.-Fuchs/e/B002BLZ20O
22.) http://www.myspace.com/bitsofthedead

The above sites that were nixed were fine for when I needed them, but after awhile and with the ever-changing way folks use the Internet, many had to go.

Wow. Went from 22 web sites to 17 in just a few short weeks. But also note that #’s 1, 2 and 10 all link to the same place, so I’m actually down to 15 web sites now. Craziness.

So it’s coming close to the time of year again when hundreds of different educational technology companies, and thousands upon thousands of perspective purchasers, people working in schools/colleges/other educational establishments, journalists, Edu-IT specialists and consultants, will all gather together in London for the largest trade show of its kind. If you fit into any one of these categories then you are really missing out unless you pay a visit.
BETT 2010 will be taking place from the 13th to the 16th of January (with Saturday the 16th being the publicly open day). I have been lucky enough to be able to find the time to visit for the past two years and it has been a thoroughly enjoyable and worthwhile experience. If at all possible, it is far too much to see all in one day and so a couple of days at the event should make for a more relaxing visit.
Anyway, each year the show offers awards to “Reward creative and innovative products for learners and teachers”, and the finalist’s shortlist for 2010 has now been released. You can see the shortlist here http://www.bettawards.com/ and find out more about the BETT show at http://www.bettshow.com/.

So you’ve started a blog. Welcome to 1998, Zach.

The Internet, circa 1998