Disqus - Latest Comments for ahynes1

Re: Google Wave Federation Update

ahynes1 — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:43:42 -0000

I've been doing things way more complicated than the average user of Google Wave. For most people they go to the google wave site, use they account they've been given, if they are lucky enough to have been given an account and start exploring wave.

What I am doing is very different. Google makes it possible for anyone to set up their own wave servers. So, I've set up my own wave server. They also make it possible for wave servers to connect with other wave servers. So, of late, I've been working connecting my test server to other people's test servers.

With that, I have a test server that I can give anyone accounts to. However, the user interface is very primitive. There are other wave servers that anyone can set out, also with very primitive interfaces, but ti gives a hint at some of the things that may be coming down the pike.

I'll post another post about this later.

Re: #NaNoWriMo Update, November 3rd

ahynes1 — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:58:01 -0000

Patricia,

Unlike Eliza Doolittle in Shaw's Pygmalion, Liza will be completely a creation of her creators, more like the original Pygmalion statue from Greek mythology. However, instead of being created out of marble, she is created complete online. Hank and Pickles create a Facebook account for Liza, establish a circle of friends, post events that she is involved in, and so on, until there ends up being a few problems with the creation.

So, here are a few paragraphs where the idea gets presented:

“I’ve got it!” explained Pickles. “Let’s create the perfect woman.” Hank put his head in his hands shaking it back and forth and just chuckled. He looked up at Pickles, stretched out his hand, the palm facing up to heaven in some sort of supplication, and opened his mouth as if to say something.

After a few moments when no words came, he finally managed to say, “And how do you propose we do that?” He didn’t express other concerns. He feared that Pickles view of the perfect woman amounted to amalgamation of an airbrushed porn star and whomever he had had his most recent one night stand with. Pickles sure didn’t understand the complexities of a woman or how to fit all the details of a human being together.

Pickles didn’t miss a beat. “We can create her online. We can make a Facebook page, and Twitter account and set her up on LinkedIn and a host of other sites. It would be really cool.”

Hank, ever thinking of the details, responded with a litany: “What will she look like? Will she have a photo? Where will she live? What will she do? Perhaps most importantly, who will be her friend on these sites?”

Re: Google Wave Federation on Ubuntu – Openfire XMPP, StatusNet, Asterisk and Beyond

ahynes1 — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:38:04 -0000

No, it should work with other XMPP servers. I've read about people having success with ejabberd and prosody

For details on an ejabberd install from a couple months ago, check
http://www.process-one.net/en/blogs/article/usi...

For a prosody install, check
http://zhekov.freehostia.com/blog/2009/07/30/go...

Then, let me know how ti goes for you.

Re: I Shot Adgitize Between The Ize

ahynes1 — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:26:19 -0000

My experience is a bit different. I post daily, have pretty good traffic, and try to visit at least 50 Adgitize sites a day. For me, it has consistently paid off, getting good traffic and positive cashflow.

True, it isn't a lot of money, and true, I have a very low CTR for the Adgitize traffic. However, for my purposes a low CTR isn't a concern. I'm not trying to get people to buy stuff or click on ads. I'm trying to get them to read, and hopefully think. That part seems to be working well.

Re: Adgitizing's Price Increase

ahynes1 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:13:24 -0000

A quick look at Google Analytics reveals that
EC Ads are 41% new visitors. The EC category page also is 41% new visitors. For me, traffic from EC Inboxs are 49% new traffic.

As a comparison, Adgitize is about 43% new visitors.

Re: Adgitizing's Price Increase

ahynes1 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:55:09 -0000

Thanks for the comments. Perhaps I'm looking at the numbers a little bit differently than you are.

First, I am basing my analysis strictly on Google Analytics numbers. As such, some of the visits, especially the drop and run type visits just don't show up in my statistics. That is fine with me.

Then, I differentiate between three types of EntreCard traffic. There is the traffic generated by ads, the traffic generated by people looking at my profile and the traffic generated by people clicking on the Inbox.

If I look at total EC traffic compared with total Adgitize traffic, EC currently generates about twice the traffic Adgitize does.

However, that is not apples to apples comparison. If you look at ads to ads comparison, Adgitize produces 60% more traffic.

As I noted, during October, the amount of traffic coming from EC has shifted from people clicking on Ads to people clicking on profile information. My hypothesis is that this may be because my profile is more prominent now that other noted bloggers have left EC.

It will be interesting to track these numbers over the coming months to see what other changes in policies do.

Re: EntreCard Updates

ahynes1 — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:45:17 -0000

ausetkmt - I'll check out your post about Vampire Widgets a little later. I do agree that it is the networking that matters and that EntreCard is but one tool for this networking.

I will be writing more on this very soon.

Re: Hard Cider - Batch 1, Day 1

ahynes1 — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:00:44 -0000

Tel, Sorry about not getting back to this. Yes. There are very legitimate health concerns. First, be sure to use a vapor lock when you make your cider to keep any bacteria from betting into your hard cider while it is fermenting. Second, be sure to sterilize everything before you start to make your cider. Any sort of food can go bad if you don't prepare it properly and hard cider is no different.

That said, if you sterilize, use a vapor lock and generally keep the whole process clean and sterile there is very little to worry about.

As to letting something organic sit around in a bottle for two months: First, two months is a long time to brew the cider. However, more importantly, I hope they don't drink wine. That is something organic that has sat around in bottles usually for much longer than two months, unless you are drinking really cheap wine which is even more likely to make you sick.

Re: Hard Cider - Batch 1, Day 1

ahynes1 — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:57:09 -0000

Noel,
It was great to talk with you on Facebook last night. I hope your cider comes out well. I also look forward to experimenting with hard pear cider.

As a note to others, the gist of our discussion is that it would probably be good for Noel to stir or shake the cider vigorously to try and get the sugar and yeast to mix in more and that he shouldn't worry about briefly removing the vapor lock to do so.

Also, a note to other would be hard cider makers. If you use a dry yeast or a cake yeast, be sure to mix it with a small amount of cider first to make it a good solution that can work a little before you pour it into your five gallon carboy. It is easier to mix that way.

Re: Which Blog Advertising Networks do you use?

ahynes1 — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:37:21 -0000

Facebook...62 Sorry that you are getting so much negative feedback. Thanks for your comment here.

Chinaren I've been concerned about sampling biases, so I've been promoting the survey on various sites where there are discussions about EntreCard. I've also posted it up on CMF Ads forum, Adgitize's forum, and BlogCatalog's forum. I'm hoping this will balance out at least a little bit of the sampling bias.

Anything you, or others can do to get a larger sample would greatly be appreciated.

Re: Wordless Wednesday

ahynes1 — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:03:55 -0000

These are Loukoumades, a honey covered small Greek donut, sort of like a donut hole or 'Munchin" that we had at a Greek Festival in Orange CT. They were WONDERFUL

Re: Exploring Different Points of View

ahynes1 — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:19:43 -0000

I have sent a personal email to bingkee apologizing for offending her. That was not my intent. I wanted to get people to look at the broader context, to "more seriously explore different points of view" as I said in my post. I try to link to online sources whenever possible, and I felt it was important to link to the starting point of the discussion about the case.

I apologize if I "accused" bingkee of anything. I was simply trying to recount the details of her blog post, the discussion there and the information from other sources.

Re: Ruling on Green Party Case Against the Connecticut Citizens' Election Program

ahynes1 — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:14:39 -0000

Doug, I hope you are right. There will be the people who have always been screaming to get rid of the program that will try to use this as an opportunity and an excuse to raid the program to try and close the deficit.

I do hope saner heads prevail since I believe that the cost to our state that pay to play politics generates is much greater than the minimal cost of a well run publicly financed election system.

Re: Ruling on Green Party Case Against the Connecticut Citizens' Election Program

ahynes1 — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:11:51 -0000

Ken, thanks for the additional information. I had not read that section of the decision. It is a very long decision. Any additional information would be appreciated.

Did he say anything about the fact that the Independent party had half of their candidates qualify on the State Representative side?

Re: Blog Advertising - EntreCard, Adgitize, and Beyond

ahynes1 — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:15:15 -0000

Various replies:

Lola, you are correct that EntreCard has not ended paid advertising. They said they were phasing it out and still haven't, and seem to be trying to find loopholes to bring it back in.

I'm not sure that the new credit scheme is absurd. It is as justifiable as previous schemes. Nor do I believe they will lose a lot of blogs because of it. However, it is yet again a poorly planned and poorly executed change that indicates they have very little concern for their users.

Cornyman, it will be interesting to see how the changes will affect advertising and the rates. I haven't thought about it in as much detail as you seem to have. Some of the reason is that I expect there are likely to be other changes before we really see the full effect of this change. Again, I suspect that the EntreCard team hasn't thought seriously about any of this, or of methods of checking to see if their actions have any of their intended results.

Bingkee, I stay with EntreCard as long as it provides a benefit to me. I change my usage patterns as they change and as other market forces take effect. I do agree that Adgitize seems to be working especially well.

Storybeader, I did not mention Project Wonderful because I have not used them. I did calculations at one point to see if they might be a good revenue source, and it didn't seem like it. From a revenue side CMF Ads seems a better choice than Project Wonderful. In terms of advertising to get traffic, my sense, without any empirical data, is that CMF Ads probably is more effective. I would be interested in hearing information about how well Project Wonderful has done in driving traffic.

Re: It Takes a Village: The Rescue of #54 - The Journey Home on the Doggie Railroad

ahynes1 — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:55:39 -0000

Note: A good friend has contacted me to let me know that the Starfish story I referenced is originally by Loren Eiseley under the name The Star Thrower.

Re: Continuing the Health Care Debate

ahynes1 — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:32:31 -0000

David,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. It is clear that you and I have different opinions on this, and many subjects, but I greatly appreciate your ability to present them clear and rationally, unlike so much of what has been going on with so much of the health care debate.

Let me respond to some of your points. First, I agree that health care and treatment decisions should be left to the patient and doctor with as little interference from either the government or the insurance companies. The current system has way too much interference by the private insurance companies. I also agree with you that the debate is not focused the way it should be in your second point and that the current health insurance game is rigged.

Eliminating barriers to interstate competition is an important step that needs to be pursued. I have mixed opinions about mandated coverage. It is something the insurance companies push for, not without some justification. Everyone in the United States gets health coverage in some way, either through an existing government run program like Medicaid, through private insurance programs, out of their own pockets, or at the emergency room and not paying for it. What we really need is to find a better way of seeing that everyone pays their fair share. Mandated coverage is one attempt at that. It is better than what we have now, but there may be better ways and I'm interested in hearing them.

The problem is that there is no perfect solution, and we need to take whatever steps we can in the right direction. This is a place where you and I perhaps disagree. I believe that adding a public option is a step in the right direction.

As to tort reform, some sort of tort reform may be a good idea. However, I looked closely into this topic when my wife was running for State Representative in 2004. Unless things have changed drastically since them, tort reform would actually only have a very minimal affect on cost and would limit ways of holding substandard doctors accountable. What is more significant in cost cutting is finding ways to make sure that doctors are delivering the highest quality health care. Tort reform does not help with this.

Re: The Best Locally Grown Food

ahynes1 — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 21:18:53 -0000

I think a lot of people don't realize the great locally grown food available near them, no matter where they live, or how satisfying and how much fun it can be to support locally grown food.

I'd love to see others write about some of the great local grown food in their areas.

Re: Julie, Julia and I

ahynes1 — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 10:11:52 -0000

A friend wrote to ask me if the title should be Julie, Julia and Me instead of Julie, Julia and I.

Here are the thoughts I shared in response:

My understanding is that it all depends on whether or not Julie, Julia and I are the subject or the object.

e.g.

Julie, Julia, and I abhor name droppers. (as the subject)

People yelled at Julie, Julia and me as we talked in front of the close automobile plant. (as the object)

As a simple phrase that is not part of a full sentence, it could be either. At least that is my understanding of traditional English grammer. I struggled with the decision which title to use. In my mind Julie, Julia and Me brought up recollections of Roger and Me which had completely the wrong connotation. Julie, Julia and I reminded me of the great anonymous quote, "The Queen and I abhor name droppers."

Comments?

Re: Updates: Anthony Maio, Anthem, Marriage Equality, Sheraton Hotel Racism, and other stuff

ahynes1 — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:38:47 -0000

Let me know when your blog post goes up. I'll want to read it. If you want more details, send me an email to aldon.hynes at orient-lodge.com and I can send you links to various stories as well as what I sent to the public relations group for the hotel chain.

Re: Updates: Anthony Maio, Anthem, Marriage Equality, Sheraton Hotel Racism, and other stuff

ahynes1 — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:03:26 -0000

ausetkmt,

Thanks for adding your thoughts on this. I've tried to look at it from both sides, the side of the kids and the side of other guests. The kids should be given space to celebrate. The other guests should be given the opportunity for a good night sleep.

I questioned in my mind what the Sheraton staff could have done differently when people complained. I hadn't considered the aspect of how the booking or room assignment was handled in the first place.

I glad you shared your perspective, it has helped broadened my own view about the situation.

Re: Wordless Wednesday

ahynes1 — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 10:59:38 -0000

Actually, this picture was taken out on Cape Cod, but I would encourage you to consider visiting the Hammonasset Beach State Park in Connecticut.

Re: #frff Morning Fog

ahynes1 — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 22:02:42 -0000

It was a wonderful time at Falcon Ridge. I'm home now and trying to catch up on emails and social media

Re: The essence of Falcon Ridge #frff

ahynes1 — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 22:00:48 -0000

When I am not on vacation, such as on Cape Cod or at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, I live in Woodbridge, CT.

Re: Wordless Wednesday

ahynes1 — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:29:15 -0000

I was out on an incredible whale watch and took lots of pictures. This was the best that I took with my cellphone. I have even better pictures waiting to be uploaded from my camera. For the longest time a mother and calf were breaching, waving their fins and tails and just putting on the most spectacular show.