Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
The unfortunate (and expensive) thing about getting into technology is that it’s a seriously vicious cycle: you buy a cool gadget, realize how awesome it is, and then suddenly there’s a new one. “If this one was awesome,” you think to yourself, “how much more awesome must the next one be?” And then, one life-savings later, you realize it’s everything you dreamed of. Until the next one.
It’s a problem. But gdgt, one of my new favorite sites—it’s been around a while, but I’m only just getting into it—is a great place to turn for all your gadget needs, from figuring out which one to buy, to finding out how to make the most of ones you already have (or maybe even tucked in a drawer somewhere.
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Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
A couple of weeks ago, I found a song that I decided was absolutely the best song ever created, ever. Spoiler alert: it’s “I Can Transform Ya” by Chris Brown and Lil’ Wayne. I’m not even a rap or R&B fan, but I loved this song, and I wanted to tell everyone I knew about it.But there’s something unhelpful about saying “hey dude, there’s this great song, but I’m not going to send it to you.” At the same time, sending it individually to everyone I want to be aware of my fantastic music taste is pretty prohibitive as well.
The downside of file-sending services is twofold: one, it’s hard to send a file to a lot of people at once. Two, the files tend to go away so fast that by the time you get it to everyone you want to see it, it’s gone to preserve storage space. Preventing that from happening usually requires payment, and payment’s not my thing if I can avoid it. I want control, permanence, and sharing abilities.
Read More CommentsPost by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
Everybody says the beauty of blogging is that it’s simple. Anyone can do it, it’s simple to figure out, and it blurs the lines between journalists and consumers, because now everyone has a platform on which their voice can be heard.
I don’t buy it.
When you start a blog (and increasingly, it’s not if but when), the whole process can seem horribly overwhelming. There are tons of possibilities, endless things to write about, infinite numbers of ways to host, run, manage, create, market and grow your blog, and so on and so forth.
Since I’m arguably the world’s worst programmer, there’s zero hope of me being the one to solve all of your problems. But I can help a bit. As someone who’s been through this process, here are the three questions I wish I’d asked when starting my blog(s).
Read More CommentsPost by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
Adobe Photoshop, as anyone who’s used it will tell you, is a pretty unbelievable piece of software. It’s expensive, but if you’re aiming to do any sort of heavy-duty image editing, Photoshop still seems to be the favorite and most-used applications.
There are tons of websites out there to help you achieve Ninja-status in Photoshop, and do a whole variety of cool things – I’ve even covered a bunch of them over at MakeUseOf. But, in reality, the hardest part of Photoshop is the beginning, that learning curve from installing the software to doing even the most basic things.
Thankfully, a few sites around the Web are looking out for the little guy, and everything from tutorials to guidebooks are available to you to teach you some of the basics in Photoshop.
Read More CommentsPost by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
“What is Twitter?” I get asked that question all the time, and still have yet to come up with an answer that makes sense to other people.
My explanations involve lots of words with a “tw-” prefix, some nonsense about direct messages only working if they’re following you, and always mention how person B can see person A’s conversation with person C only if they’re following both A and C.
By the end of it, I’ve even lost track of what Twitter is – I’ve definitely got no chance of explaining it to someone else.
Explaining things that you know, backwards and forwards, to other people can be both frustrating and difficult for everyone involved. That’s why I’m not going to even try anymore.
From now on, I think I’ll just point them over to this video at CommonCraft, called “Twitter in plain English.”
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This article is part of a series I’m calling “Un-Tech,” in which two non-techies (my parents) take a fresh look at some of our favorite Web applications. Their experience and perspective, I think, can help us to better understand how people understand the Web.
This week, I invited my Dad, Joey, to try Google Reader. No more instructions than that. Here’s his experience:
I love Google, and I enjoy reading, so I clicked on Google Reader with a bit of technological excitement—another step toward the cool 2.0 Life! What I got, though, didn’t exactly keep the heart pumping. Instead of great insight, thoughtful correspondence and expert analysis, I got “Customize Your Friend List.”
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Darren Rowse is my hero. There, I said it.
He’s a professional blogger- currently the author of 3 great, successful blogs. He writes books, leaps tall buildings, and bends spoons with his mind.
In addition to all that, he’s a great resource for people looking to get involved in the blogging world. Even Darren was once a blogging beginner, and he’s full of great advice on how to blog, and do it well. Since he knows far more than I do about blogging, I decided to ask him some questions.
1. Tell me about yourself- who you are, what you do.
I’m a 36 year old guy who lives in Melbourne Australia with my wife and two boys (both under 3). I blog for a living on three blogs – ProBlogger (blogging tips) – Digital Photography School (photography tips) and Twitip (twitter tips). I’m also an author of ProBlogger the Book and cofounder of the b5media blog network.
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As the blogosphere has gotten bigger, so has the number of sources many people check for information. You’ve got the news you read, the blogs, the forums- there’s a huge number of places to go to check for new information.
Add to that the problem of updating speeds: some sites update tens or hundreds of times a day, others only update once in a blue moon. But you don’t want to miss one, so you find yourself constantly checking the site, over and over, to see if there’s anything new.
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