Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

Rottweilers. Computers. Cameras. World Domination. Not necessarily in that order.

Rottweilers.
Computers. Cameras.
World Domination.
Not necessarily in that order.

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It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place

November 9, 2012 by kathi

The title is from Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass,” of course. Okay, okay. I admit I had to look it up–I was going to say it was from “Alice in Wonderland.”

What happened to Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Tumblr just being fun? Twitter changed the look of its profile pages back in September. I still haven’t fixed mine to add a header image. In fact, I never got around to adjusting the width of my left-side graphic either. Same with the other social media sites. By the time I get around to making them look slick, the rules have changed again.

I used to really enjoy doing that kind of stuff. I don’t know when it started feeling like work.

(NaBloPoMo | November ’12: 9 of 30)

Filed Under: Blogging and Social Media Tagged With: Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter

New Twitter background

October 28, 2010 by kathi

I might not be getting much accomplished this month, but I did manage to update my Twitter background to work with both old and new Twitter formats. Yay, me.

(NaBloPoMo | October ’10: 28 of 31)

Filed Under: Blogging and Social Media Tagged With: NaBloPoMo, Twitter

New Twitter, new task

October 11, 2010 by kathi

This is my Twitter background peacefully coexisting with the old Twitter web interface:

This is my Twitter background rudely obliterated by the new Twitter web interface:

In order for your custom Twitter background to be viewable by most browser/screen resolution combinations, you should plan on using a width of 41 to 108 pixels for the important stuff. The photo on my background is 200 pixels wide.

Not sure yet whether I’m going to just shrink down my existing photo and text, or do a complete redesign. I’ll have to do one for the Total Rottweiler Magazine Twitter page as well. Adding to the to-do list now!

(NaBloPoMo | October ’10: 11 of 31)

Filed Under: Blogging and Social Media Tagged With: NaBloPoMo, Twitter

Does everything always have to be about games?

June 3, 2009 by kathi

I’m not cool enough to be part of the beta testing for the Twitter game Spymaster and so far, it doesn’t seem that too many of my followers and followees are involved either (not necessarily because they are not cool though as my followers and followees are all way cool).

This isn’t really about Spymaster, though. If you want to read about it, there are thousands of inches of copy about it already floating around the ‘net. You can start with the link up there. The game even sounds like it might be fun to play.

I just wonder why everything has to be about games. Why exactly does Twitter need games?

I’ve been a member of a number of forums that added arcade modules. It didn’t seem to me that the games attracted people that really contributed to what was supposedly the main purpose of a forum: discussion. And in some cases, good and entertaining discussion slowed down because people were busy playing games.

I don’t spend much time on Facebook these days either. Again, everything there seems to be about games and quizzes. The sad part is that all of the noise with game results, game invites, and quiz results sometimes causes me to miss things that are more important to me and the person who posted them. Stuff like blog updates or status updates with actual thoughts, opinions and feelings. Stuff like new photos of family, friends, pets and cool places. Even if I don’t know someone all that well, I’d far rather see a photo of their child or pet, or even hear them bitch about their job, than know the fact that they just robbed a store in “Mafia Wars” or made a building in “Metropolis.”

I’ve complained before about people who communicate solely by sending game invites and pixel gifts, so I won’t make you all listen to that again.

But am I the only one who thinks there are too many games in places that really shouldn’t need them? Or am I just not fun enough to live?

(NaBloPoMo | June ‘09: 3 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 130 of 274)

Filed Under: Blogging and Social Media Tagged With: Facebook, NaBloPoMo, online games, Spymaster, stupid Facebook apps, Twitter

Love and hate for Twitter links

May 10, 2009 by kathi

I really enjoy finding new blogs, forums and other online resources on Twitter.

One thing that I have really come to hate is the accounts that position themselves as subject matter experts, but are really there just to push their get-(me)-rich-online-quick pyramid scheme. Five tweets that link to possibly relevant resources written by other people, then their scam tweet. Repeat throughout the day. Maybe the whole day if they are automated enough.

That’s annoying enough, but how about the quality, or lack of same, of the actual links? Those possibly relevant resource links are obviously generated by some kind of automatic search. Irrelevant links are just an annoyance, but how about the ones that are just plain wrong? It’s obvious that the tweeter is not monitoring the links in any way.

Example: subject is dogs. Some of the links are stories about sports teams with “dog” nicknames. Annoying, yet harmless. One of the links is to the website of a trainer who has been charged with dog abuse (final outcome still being determined to my knowledge). Annoying and possibly very harmful.

I don’t follow this type of account for long, but I still wonder about what damage they are doing, and I doubt any response I’ve made was enough to counter any bad link.

There are other subject matter experts who do screen their links, and provide valuable and interesting information in addition to promoting their own business. Those I keep following.

(NaBloPoMo | May ‘09: 10 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 106 of 274)

Filed Under: Blogging and Social Media Tagged With: NaBloPoMo, spam, Twitter