Category Archives: techy stuff

Not writing Nortel off yet…

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Nortel is going through some pain at the moment and I’m sure a number of people have written them off (or dropped what little stock they had left in this company). I’m going to hang in there.

I’ve worked directly with some of their developers and they believe in this company and the products they are producing. These guys aren’t just drinking the koolaid, they’re serving it. The passion with which they speak of the work they’re doing, the drive and the excitement,….it’s more than encouraging. And these developers are more than competent. I have a lot of respect for the work they do and for their ability to deliver.

I can’t speak from a corporate perspective, but I can speak from a technical side. I think they continue to be innovative. And they continue to impress me.

Here’s an example. This isn’t too recent an announcement, but what they launched with web.alive was pretty visionary. Lenovo (Lenovo purchased IBM’s PC and laptop division) bought into this and set up a commercial portal where you can experience a “Second Life” type of shopping experience through their eLounge.

In today’s economic climate, with travel costs being cut back, and with the environment in the state that it’s in, there’s a drive to not only cut costs but also reduce the consumption of fossil fuels. Thus we need a more virtual means of communicating, whether it be through a retail experience or a virtualized business meeting.

I think Nortel is ahead of the game here and I’m not ready to write them off just yet.

Virtual conference anyone?

WordPress central

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I mentioned in an earlier post that I would talk about how I’ve connected my WordPress blog here at davidhburton.com to the following:

  • Facebook
  • Myspace
  • Livejournal
  • Twitter
  • Blogger
The point of this post is that it took a LOT of work to figure out all of these plugins and I can offer others the information I found. It basically lets me blog from one place and update all my other social networks.

Here goes:

Facebook: The facebook connection took some time and I tried a number of different things, but I found the Socialite plugin for WordPress worked best. This plugin allows me to notify Facebook of a new post (and updated posts), and posts a short blurb on my wall. It’s not instantaneous (i.e. it usually takes about 20 minutes for it to show), but it works. I also have my Notes in Facebook pulling from my WordPress blog so the full posts can be viewed there.

Myspace: This one was REALLY hard but I managed to sort it out with Socialite and it works quite nicely. There are a couple of little kinks that I need to work out around the “AddThis” plugin leaving some extraneous code on my the Myspace blog, but I’ll sort that out in time. Otherwise this one fits the bill.

Livejournal: This one was one of the easiest plugins I’ve used: LiveJournal Crossposter. Install, activate, and enter your information. Then it will post your previous entries into Livejournal and has some nifty integration to even update posts when you edit them. Brilliant!

Twitter: This was tough as well. I tried a few plugins and in the end settled on Twitme. It’s pretty straightforward and posted just like I wanted out to Twitter once I create a new post.

Blogger: Blogger took a bit of finagling. In the end I had to set up an email account on Blogger that allows me to post from an email address. Then I installed the “Post Notification” plugin for WordPress. This allows me send HTML templates or straight text to Blogger through the email address I configured. I’m keeping it simple at this point with just text. You can also use this plugin to send emails to people that might subscribe to a mailing list, but I don’t have a need for that at the moment so couldn’t tell you how well that works.

That’s it for now. I’ve also discovered some other nifty plugins for WordPress that I’ll blog about another time. Hope this helps someone else out as it took a lot for me to find all of this. But as a result my life got a lot simpler.

Putting it all together…

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It’s taken me some time to put together what I wanted to do with this blog, which is to be able to inform other writers, share thoughts on things that I see or experience in the world around me, and keep people updated on things that are going on with my writing. There’s a lot of social networking sites and media that I need to update and I think I’ve mostly covered it off. (until more shows up, that is.)

Fortunately with my WordPress blog, I have the means to push out updates to the following:

  • Blogger
  • Myspace
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
That’s currently what I’m engaged with and it makes it easier for me to post one blog here and have it pushed out elsewhere. In upcoming posts I’ll explain what I had to do to get these working.

The benefits of Twitter

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I know a lot of people that don’t get Twitter, yet they Facebook like a stalker. Hmm. I don’t get it.

Anyhoo, recent reports have indicated that being inundated by this much rapid media could turn us all into fembots. (Don’t know what fembots are? Google it with Bionic Woman. God, I miss that show – the orginal, that is.) But I think that this needs to taken in moderation and filtered accordingly. You follow what interests you, unfollow what doesn’t. And there’s a lot of interesting stuff out there and it’s mostly through people you don’t know. They’re sharing their knowledge, offering alternative perspectives. 

It’s through Twitter that I’ve been connected with some really interesting people around the world, both from a writing perspective and a “geek” one. I love science and technology. Always have. (That might explain the Biology and Computer Science degree). And through this particular social medium I’m learning all sorts of things that used to ignite my passions in university. It’s like taking all the courses I want to take, but without the exams! 

As an example, here’s a blog that I was introduced to as a result of Twitter.

And here’s the best part. It’s only going to get more interesting.