Zeit·geist (n.)
The spirit of the time; the taste and outlook characteristic of a period or generation:
Generally used by the self appointed intelligenti in high-falutin articles, the term zeitgeist is an Ãœber-Trendicious way of referring to a general attitude recognized by the formost experts in general attitudes (freelance writers on a deadline) as being indicative of the attitude of the time.
Used in a sentence: Using the word “Zeitgeist” is part of the current online zeitgeist.
Zeitgiest is the German word for a big sneeze from the nose of a sumo wrestler.
All of this is here to point you to the latest Google Zeitgeist for 2005, conveniently released before the end of 2005 for the sake of seeming more relevant although less accurate.
Some say that AOL belongs in one of the lower levels of Dante’s inferno. I agree, but I doubt they are there to receive punishment. They are doling it out. While demons are fishing for grafters in the boiling pitch of Bolgia 5 in Circle 8 (accessible via the Congressional Subway), AOL is blocking emails to uninformed users and sticking horrible junk on their computers with their foul free CD’s promising eternal free hours in exchange for their souls.
However, the dank odor of AOL often reaches the nose of the holiest and geekiest of computer users. When we aren’t explaining to people how AOL disks foul up your computer simply by placing them in your CD drive we are trying to keep our mail from being blocked.
AOL’s latest scheme is to stop spammers by bouncing emails using certain default Return-Paths. Spammers respond by changing the Return-Path in their spam-cannons. We who use web forms, however, must figure how to get around it.
I believe I have the way right here.
Continue reading ‘Getting past AOL’s latest mail block’
Check out NetVibes.com
It has been out since September, but I only recently started really looking at it. My problem has been that I don’t need yet another page to load for my content. I rely on Firefox to manage my stuff for me. It is more private, secure, and available. If I wanted my information to be more web based then I would consider something like this, but I don’t even use my Google Homepage.
Netvibes uses AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) to do some great things. It allows you to move boxes around easily by drag and drop, like Google and Start.com do, but it also links directly into some great “Web 2.0” tools like Writely and Flickr.
It has bookmarks, del.icio.us, a GMail module, any RSS feed you want or even Weather.com.
It supports IE 6 on Windows (but not well on Mac apparently), Mozilla, Firefox, and recently Opera. Safari (and I would assume Konqueror) are not yet supported as well as Lynx (I confidently assume). You can see more at the NetVibes Blog.
But, beyond that stuff, I really want to learn AJAX now.
Mmonroe posed this question in the forum: Google Adwords
ehurst wrote that most geeks have no reason to.
Are you a geek. Do you not click?
Are you not a geek. Do you click?
I am in the process of moving 4.5 gigs of security video files from one computer to another. Watching the virtually meaningless “Minutes Remaining” countdown under the flying paper animation makes me glad that the process for estimating the completion time is not used in other systems.
Imagine it at work with NASA.
Shuttle we are ready for the final countdown.
T – 10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 8 . . . 9 . . . 23 . . . 7 . . . 6 . . . 7 . . . 6 . . . 7 . . . 5 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . 1 . . . 1 . . . 1 . . . Liftoff!
I have not yet reached the point of where this feels as useful as Google maps, but the “Bird’s Eye View” is amazing.
Google started the lively battle of the internet maps less than a year ago and their interactive maps (which kicked the snot out of Yahoo!’s maps) have done some amazing things for us. They added satellite images and then made the hybrid combination. This has been interesting, but aerial photography lust does better.
I used to live in a county that had property apparaiser information linked into aerial photography of the area. It was great for seeing details of what was around, but this is much better.
Check out this aerial view of the building where I work:
to watch out for.
Hooray for Microsoft! (I can’t wait to see Google catch up on this one though)
This item can also be seen in the OSMinistry Forum here: Windows Live Local
OSMinistry has changed in form since when I had my first ideas about it.
Originally it was to be a resource and knowledgebase for technology in ministry. This includes the technologies useful in ministry, using that technology for ministry, and building ministry across that technology. I have stopped the work on the knowledgebase in favor of a forum for discussion. It gets more involvement than a knowledgebase would anyway.
While I love the use of forums for allowing solid and expanded discussions on topics, many people do not have time to follow yet another forum. Blogs, on the other hand are typically shallow, but they have more immediacy and are easier for outsiders to look in on.
This is why I have decided to start a blog here at OSM. It was almost one year ago (well, one week shy of a year ago) that I started a RSS Feed for the forum. It met part of the need, but lacked the abilities of a blog system like WordPress. Basically, I believe that people interact differently with blogs and are more likely to link and refer to one than to an RSS feed or a plain forum.
So, here goes something.