Shaine Mata Blog

Tonight, I exported my Session 80 blog and imported into this blog account, then deleted it. Earlier this week, I deleted my Wordpress blog and imported it here too. This is all in a move towards simplification. I think a big part of this move to consolidate my content is due to Google's recent streamlining of services thanks to Google+. The streamlining makes it easier to do things that previously required a bunch of other services. Google+ inspired the consolidation because of all the features it has, combining the best of what makes the other services useful. Previously, your blog pics were deposited into Picasa; but, if you wanted to add a photo, you had to upload or provide the link to the photo in your Picasa album. There was no way to access your albums. With the addition of Google+ and the new version of Blogger , it is now possible to add any photo or video hosted in your Picasa account. My photo posts previously had to be done through Flickr or Posterous. Videos us

I successfully moved ShaineMata.net from my old self-hosted Wordpress site to Blogger. I found Wordpress2Blogger earlier today, which converts from one format to the other. The Export/Import of the posts was easy. The only other work to be completed was to point the domain from my hosted site over to Google via the Godaddy. I am certain there are broken links and missing files somewhere. I don't think I'll go hunting for them; I'll probably fix them as I find them. Eventually, if I get rich, I'll hire somebody to check all my posts. I imported more than 1,000 posts; I'm sure you can understand my hesitation. I still recommend Wordpress for small businesses and other applications; but, for my own personal blog, it was too much. Additionally, there are features in Blogger that make it a better platform for my uses, that other people would not use. The features I like about Blogger, for my own purposes, are that updates are automatic, the ability to add locati

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Image via Wikipedia"] [/caption] I've been experimenting, for the past two weeks, with a regular old feature phone, a.k.a. dumb phone , for basic texting and calling needs, supplemented by a 7 inch Android tablet. The results have been good in terms of productivity. When I got my first smartphone , I was so happy to be able to access email and be able to tap out a text message on a keyboard. It was a Palm Treo by T-Mobile. With GPRS , the best I could do on the web was WAP . I tried a Sidekick and other types. I finally settled on a T-Mobile Dash , which was awesome with EDGE. I was really rolling along on 2G speeds. And phones got better and could do much more at faster speeds; and I got slower and more distracted from doing my work. Internet services started targeting the mobile user. We could tweet, post photos, write blog posts, hang out on Facebook, visit full websites, an

The President and Congress are in economic quicksand. Throughout his presidency, Obama has often blamed our economic woes on the past president, on a tsunami, on headwinds, on anything other than facing up to his greatest fear, he's in over his head. It seems like he can't get a break. At this point, the more Congress struggles, the deeper we sink. Whenever our leaders blame outside forces for causing our slump, it only highlights the lack of control they have over our situation. When you shift the blame, you also shift confidence in your abilities away from your person. True, the President and Congress did inherit some economic problems; but, they also created new ones. When they muscled through the health care reform bill, they spooked a lot of people. They spooked people who are concerned about national debt, eventually forming the Tea Party. Most importantly, they spooked the business community, who have some heavy economic burdens waiting for them in coming years a

My experiment with using a feature phone with an Android tablet seems to be paying off in terms of mobile productivity. The theory of the experiment is that I will have greater focus by not having a smartphone. All information needs are being served by the tablet or desktop. My new handset is a Nokia 1616. I was previously working with a Sony-Ericsson Equinox handset in the experiment. It's not a bad phone; it is absolutely more basic than your average smartphone. However, like many modern phones, the battery life is not all that it could be. My Android phone, loaded with apps, can go about half a day without recharging. Leaving it stock without apps and very light web browsing gets me a full day. The Equinox can pull three or four days of service on one charge. I think its talk time is rated around 7 hours. That is three days of not worrying about a charger. Unfortunately, the Equinox has a camera, bluetooth, and a WAP browser. It's too tempting to fiddle with the phone. I

Three separate TED talks on the challenges boys and men face in modern culture.

Check out "Get Seen" at https://market.android.com/details?id=book-Gqu-N2_faygC

I am currently experimenting with a feature phone, a Sony-Ericsson Equinox, and a Samsung Galaxy Tab (7 inch). Previously, I had a T-Mobile MyTouch 3G handset, which also runs Android. I have wanted to do the experiment for some time; however, due to ill timing on my phone contracts, I'm stuck paying for duplicate Internet service on my handset and on the tablet. It seems like it would be a waste to not use both Android devices. Putting all that aside, I have thought that I could conduct my business and be more productive, overall, if my handset were not a smartphone. The idea is to use one device just for calls, and the other for all the other wonderful things it does. Today was my first day of the trial. One improvement is that the lack of features makes it less attractive to me to play with the phone while driving. At most, I'll call Reqall . The tablet is not an option because you can not easily hold it in one hand and type at the same time. Presumably, you need the oth