PersonalDNA says I’m a free-wheeling experiencer

April 22, 2007 by 5 Comments

ME “Liz” Strauss blogged about a neat little personality test which reveals your “personalDNA”. For some reason, I love these little tests. Apparently, I’m a free-wheeling experiencer.

You are an Experiencer

Your inquisitive nature, imagination, and hands-on practicality make you an EXPERIENCER.

…

You are Free-Wheeling

Your charismatic nature, liveliness, and independence make you FREE-WHEELING.

Take the test and share your results in the comments below!  I’m curious to see what it says about you.

Filed Under: Dossy, Dossy and more Dossy! 5 Comments

How do I “search my feeds” in Google Reader?

April 20, 2007 by 3 Comments

Optimistically, I decided to give Google Reader a try for a week, seeing if I could actually give up Bloglines for it. I knew there would probably be some small feature missing that would make me cringe when I realized Bloglines had it but Google Reader didn’t, but … I wasn’t expecting this to be it …

Google? How do I “search my feeds” in Google Reader?! I mean, I’m not kidding: when you think Google, the first thing that pops into my head is “search engine.” I completely took for granted that, you know, I’d be able to search within my subscribed feeds. I’m not talking a general Google Blog Search, but a search across all my feed subscriptions and only from my feed subscriptions.

Before you shake your head and say, “Oh, yet another stupid feature that will never get used,” let me tell you that I find myself using this feature plenty. I’m subscribed to lots of feeds in Bloglines (300+) and I read a lot of entries all throughout the day. I often skim the high volume feeds just to get through all of the new entries. People often ask me all sorts of questions which will trigger a memory of “I vaguely recall a blog entry about that” which then prompts me to search my Bloglines subscriptions so I can either read more about the subject and/or pass along a link to the asker.

Yes, the folks at Bloglines had the sense to provide a “search my feeds” functionality in their Bloglines search. Even better, they use a sane URL format (no stupid dicking around with an embedded AJAX widget) to access it, which lends itself very nicely for creating a “quick search” Firefox bookmark, which I immediately set up:

Bloglines 'search my feeds' Firefox quick search bookmark

So, all I have to do is hit Ctrl-T to open a new tab in Firefox, then type “bs <term>” in the Address bar, and I get a search results page for that term, limited to my subscribed feeds.

I could probably get used to not having the convenience of the quick search bookmark, if Google Reader only let me search within my subscribed feeds, somehow.

Am I missing something?  Is there a way to do this and I’m just missing it, or is it buried somewhere?  I can’t believe that the Google folks totally missed this feature, but I haven’t found it yet.

Update: Google Reader (finally) gets search-within-subscriptions (Sep 6, 2007)

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Filed Under: Blogging, Geeking out, Piss and moan (Rants) 3 Comments

I’m giving Google Reader a try

April 19, 2007 by 5 Comments

I’m a long-time user of Bloglines, a RSS feed reader. I always have a browser tab open, reading feeds throughout the day. But, after reading Gina Trapani’s article at Lifehacker, where she compares Bloglines to Google Reader, I’ve finally decided to give Google Reader a try.

Google Reader is a web-based feed aggregator/reader, just like Bloglines, but it’s user interface is done in the Gmail style.  It has its own quirks and the earlier version of it didn’t really make me want to switch, but my biggest complaint with Bloglines is that when you select a feed to read, it marks all the new entries as read–this can be really annoying with high-volume feeds with lots of new articles.

Moving my feeds over was easy: just export the OPML from Bloglines and import it into Google Reader.  Google Reader imported my feeds pretty nicely, and the whole tag/label scheme in in Google Reader is pretty nice.  Except: there’s no way to rename a tag?!  If you can, I sure can’t figure out how.

So, I’m going to give Google Reader a try, using it to read all my feeds for a week or two, to see if I really want to switch permanently.

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Filed Under: Geeking out 5 Comments

del.icio.us/dossy links since April 9, 2007 at 09:00 AM

April 16, 2007 by Leave a Comment

del.icio.us/dossy (RSS) links since April 9, 2007 at 09:00 AM:

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Easter, a time for rebirth, including websites

April 11, 2007 by 1 Comment

I was given some good news this Easter: I will take over maintenance of our church’s website, The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Our Saviour. Only just over a year ago, on December 11, 2005, I was baptized, and since then I’ve been playing guitar with the Sunday school kids and now I’m taking on the responsibility of the website.

I’ve moved all the site content into a WordPress setup. This should make it easier for me to keep it up to date and possibly enlist the help of other folks to add and update content on it. Here’s a screenshot of what the site looks like today, now that the new site is live:

Screenshot of oursaviourchurch.org, 2007-04-11

I may be biased, but I’d suggest if you’re looking for a Lutheran church in the area, do come visit us! All the information you need is available, right there on the website. If there’s something you can’t find, just ask.

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Filed Under: Geeking out 1 Comment

I need to learn to have productive arguments

April 10, 2007 by 3 Comments

Steve Goguen and I regularly discuss all sorts of things, and today he made a fantastic observation and gave me some incredibly sage advice:

I want to give you some advice which I think you’ll find when arguing with someone, especially if you want the argument to be productive. You need to tell the person what parts or assumptions you agree with otherwise you will create an atmosphere where the person will think you disagree on every possible point and they won’t want to continue the conversation. I know you, and I know we are in agreement with a lot of things, but if I didn’t know you there’s no way I would come to that conclusion.

He’s right; when I argue, I am incredibly adversarial and I know it hurts my ability to move the discussion forward.  I don’t know why I argue this way, but it’s what comes naturally.  I do need to start working on a strategy of discourse that frames the conversation in a win-win atmosphere.

I’m incredibly fortunate to have good friends, like Steve.

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Filed Under: Dossy, Dossy and more Dossy! 3 Comments

del.icio.us/dossy links since April 2, 2007 at 09:00 AM

April 9, 2007 by Leave a Comment

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Snow in April, 2007

April 5, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Last year, on April 5th, it snowed in Butler, NJ. Wouldn’t you know it, but this year, it snowed again–even though it isn’t sticking and by 9:26 AM, it seems to have stopped. Here’s a satellite image of the area with the radar overlay showing snow:

Snow in April, 2007

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del.icio.us/dossy links since March 26, 2007 at 09:00 AM

April 2, 2007 by Leave a Comment

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MySQL 5.0 for Beginners training class (May 7-10, 2007) in Edison, NJ

March 28, 2007 by 2 Comments

MySQL LogoMySQL 5.0 for Beginners
May 7-10, 2007
Edison, NJ

Katina Lackey at MySQL sent me an email the other day letting me know of a newly scheduled MySQL training class scheduled for May 7-10 in Edison, NJ.  This is a beginners class in MySQL 5.0, instructor-led and hands-on, covering the fundamentals of MySQL and relational databases.  It’s a four-day course and costs $1,995–register before March 30th and you may be eligible for a 10% discount.

This session isn’t listed on the MySQL training schedule yet, so if you want to register, email Katina and let her know you heard about the class from my blog.

If you’re looking for a MySQL User Group that meets in Northern NJ, I’d also like to invite you to attend the Northern NJ MySQL Meetup, which meets on the first Wednesday of every month from 6:00-10:00 PM.  The meetup is free and we welcome everyone to join us–we only ask that you RSVP to let us know you’ll be coming.

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Filed Under: Geeking out 2 Comments
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