There is nothing more cool that seeing a project you have been working on for over a year finally launch onto the internet for all the world to see. Today Time, Inc. officially launched Maghound, a new magazine membership program.
Unlike traditional subscription services, Maghound allows you to select what magazines you receive each month. You can select from over 227 magazines from all the major publishers with more magazines being made available for selection each month.
I have been beta testing the service since June and it is very refreshing to have the flexibility to change the print magazines I receive from month to month. What’s better is that you can cancel at anytime. Try doing that with a subscription. I highly recommend you check out the service.
Between working all week on site at a client and preparing for Jake’s 5th birthday party, I never had a chance to post the chat transcript of a little trick I pulled on a colleague over instant messaging on April 1st! The team I am working with on my current project and I are sitting in one small room. We had just come back from lunch where we had been discussing the “gullibility” of people we know. When we got back to our computers, I decided to put this theory to the test.
The great thing about IM is that you can continue maintaining a straight face much, much longer than you could if you were attempting to pull this off face to face. If I didn’t have to get back to work I could have probably kept this conversation going for another 20 minutes.
I have changed the names to protect the innocent (and the gullible):
Colleague: Hi thereMe: HiMe: Did you know that Sandeep has an illegitimate child with a girl he met in Canada?Colleague: NO, get out!Me: Yeah. It slipped out at lunchColleague: I just read People at the dr. office and it was about teenage pregnancy 700KMe: Wow .. That’s highColleague: what meeting do you have this afternoonColleague: trying to keep track of all interviews we haveMe: At first he didn’t really want to talk about it. It appears she trapped him or something like thatMe: Then she found out he wasn’t a US citizenColleague: does he keep in contact with the child?Colleague: was she Indian?Me: Canadian FrenchMe: I think he does. He said its hard because of the distanceColleague: that’s why you gotta keep protectedMe: Plus, she can’t immigrate to the US because he doesn’t have citizenshipColleague: are they still dating?Me: Not sure. I think they only have the kid in common.Me: The girls name is Avril. Means April in french [Can you tell that I went to an Avril Lavigne concert the week before?]Colleague: how old is she?Colleague: I’m sure his parents were not to pleasedMe: 12 YOColleague: What?Me: Not sure if he’s told themMe: He went to school in Canada before he came to the USColleague: isn’t he 25 Colleague: that means he had her at 13Me: No. He’s olderColleague: 28Me: I think that’s why he had to come to the US. His parents disowned him. He’s parents are pretty religiousMe: I think they had an arranged marriage for him. But the girls family called it off.Colleague: wowColleague: you are like the EnquirerMe: Just goes to show .. you never really know somebodyColleague: does he give $$ to supportColleague: so the mother was really young when she had AvrilMe: He went to High School in Canada. They meet at school.Me: I think they both were very youngMe: I’m sure he helps outColleague: I’m getting [my daughter] a chastity beltMe: Good idea
This exchange has really made me reevaluate how much I can really “trust” a conversation I am having with someone over the internet (via email or IM). Especially when I can’t fully gauge the intent of the message they are sending. My point is this. When I speak with someone face to face, I use body language to judge the validity of what they are telling me. Without that sensory input, I become much more vulnerable and have to “trust” that the information they are communicating to me is the truth. Internet communication relies on a much higher level of trust than I realized before this little experiment.
Of course .. now that people know I like to play pranks over the net .. my trust-worthness has just dropped several points!
You just have to love the simplicity of badges and widgets. Badges are simply code that allow you to incorporate functionality into your web site. Flickr, Facebook and even Twitter provide you with some simple code that when dropped into an HTML/PHP/ASP/.Net page on your site pull content from those sites into yours.
You can see an example of this in the sidebar of my site. The second column now displays a Twitter badge that displays my last 5 Twitter postings (affectionally known as “tweets”).The code was provided by Twitter (http://twitter.com/badges). You can select one of three styles of badges. I am using the HTML version that immediately leverages the CSS file I use to control my site’s presentation.
I normally don’t have a problem explaining new technologies to people but Twitter really caused me to pause and think.
A Twitterer for more than a few months now I find it a great way to stay in touch with friends and colleagues. Now that I use Twitterific I am able to submit and track Twitter posts all day long.
Cali Lewis (of GeekBrief.TV) latest show discussed a video created by the team at CommonCraft Show that does a great job explaining how Twitter works and why you would want to use it. It is really short and worth watching.
I have been invited by Lullabot to speak at the DrupalCon convention in Boston this Wednesday, March 5th. The title of the talk is “How IBM uses Drupal”. I will be discussing the many ways the Centers for Solution Innovation have been using Drupal. If you happen to be in Boston, and you are a big fan of Drupal .. come on by.
