Reality is Perception

PROBLEM:
I was looking at my Facebook news stream the other day, and I realized that I never see the status updates from several of my closest friends, including my husband!  I know they post and some very frequently.  I’m always switching over to the Most Recent list (linked at the top right of the news feed, in case you didn’t know it was there).

I then realized that I just crossed the 600 friends mark and all their updates, plus all the fans/groups/etc. that I’m part of fall into my news feed as well.  This is really becoming unmanageable!  Like the way I use Tweetdeck to separate out updates by topic/user/group, etc., I want to do that with my Facebook stream as well.

SOLUTION:
I was also playing with my security settings with my friend groups the other day and realized a solution to my over-crowded feed stream!

When you click on the Friends link on the left, it opens the list of my friend groups.

Then when I click on a Friend group, it shows me the stream from only the users in that group!!

Now, it’s kind of a pain to get there (since you have to click twice), but I usually at least have to click once to get to the Most Recent news feed anyway, so one more click won’t hurt for now.  Hopefully, this means that they will or already have made this filtered news feed available externally, so tools like TweetDeck could eventually use them.

You CAN setup columns in TweetDeck by content and by users, but there’s no way to use a Facebook group you already have setup.  You have to setup groups specifically in TweetDeck (hopefully just for now).

Click Add Column, then click the Facebook icon to get the FB options.  You can then select Everyone or Create a New Group, which will guide you to picking the individual FB users you want to keep track of.

Hopefully not a permanent solution, but at least for now I have a way to see the statuses of the people I want to stalk, I mean, keep up with.

Do you know of a better way to do this?  Please leave a comment and do tell!

Two of the main stats I’ve heard since the explosion of Twitter within the last year or so (and other status-like apps like Google Buzz) are the high number of new users, but also the high number of users that abandon their Twitter account shortly after.

From my last post where I talked about the evolution of all these social networking sites, I’m saying the reason why most people don’t stay with Twitter is because of the lack of design in the Twitter website, and users not knowing the best alternatives.

There are multitudes of sites and apps that you can register for and download that you can find by just doing a Google search on “Update Twitter Apps” like this one from TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2009/02/19/the-top-20-twitter-applications/

I’m going to keep this from being a tome of reviews though, and just stick with what I see are the main two options: the Twitter website and Tweetdeck.

The Twitter Website

First off, don’t have a Twitter username that’s longer than 10 characters. Your username (like @bhbeak) is going to be included if someone re-posts what you’ve said into their status, and if you have a 30-character-long username, it won’t leave them any room to comment, etc.  aka. KEEP YOUR USERNAME AS SHORT AS POSSIBLE while still allowing people to recognize who you are. If you need ideas, let me know, and I can tell you what your celebrity name would be.

When you first login to Twitter, it takes you through a Wizard to choose suggested topics like Art & Design, Books, Business, etc. and gives you recommendations of people to “follow” (whose tweets you want to see in your “stream”).  The next step is you can find friends that have Twitter accounts already so you can follow them.

It can search your Gmail, Yahoo or AOL account for your friends that use Twitter and present them so you can choose who you’d like to follow.

Finally, you can search for Twitter usernames (like mine is @bhbeak) and follow them.

Ok, so now you have your Twitter account setup, and you’re even following some people (or at least me ).  Now you have TWO problems..

PROBLEM #1 – Everyone’s statuses that I’m following are all on one screen, and there are only a few that I want to MAKE SURE that I can always see when they update.

The Twitter website provides a solution to this by allowing you to create lists and add people to them.  That way only the people’s status who you add to that list (like a FAVES list) show up there, making it much easier to manage.

You can setup a list by clicking on the New List link on the right side of your Twitter Home page under the Search Box and Lists title.  Give your new list a name, a description (optional), and set the Public/Private flag whether you want anyone to see your list or not.

Once you have it setup, you can go to any Twitter user, or your Followers/Following list and click on the Lists button on the right of their name and click which List(s) to add them to.

Once you have a list setup, you can click on the list under the LISTS section on the right side of the Twitter page to see all the tweets from users in that list.

Setting up lists is great, and a very useful feature that we’ll discuss later, so I’d definitely recommend at least setting up a FAVES list, if not more by topic/group/etc.

However, the problem I have with it is it’s still only one list on the screen at a time?  What if I have 10+ lists and don’t want to have to click through each one?  That’s almost worse than having them all in one stream…

RESOLUTION TO #1 – Enter TWEETDECK

Tweetdeck makes it easy to see each of your friends’ statuses by splitting the screen into columns for you to see them separately, instead of separate pages or (even worse!) one single stream.  How on earth would I be able to really read and follow the statuses I’m interested in when some of the people I’m friends with fill up my stream constantly?  That’s why Tweetdeck is so good.

Once you have Tweetdeck installed, go into Settings – Accounts, you can put in your Twitter login info, and it will automatically pull in your Twitter stream, as well as allow you to post to it.

This brings me to Problem #2:

PROBLEM #2 – Now I have Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn AND NOW Google Buzz, too.. Do I have to update each of them individually?

RESOLUTION TO #2, Part 1 – Tweetdeck can update Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn all at once!

In Tweetdeck, the same place you put in your Twitter info, you can also put in your Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn login info, and it will automatically pull in your streams from those sites, as well as allow you to post to them all at once.  If you don’t want certain posts to go to Facebook, for instance, you can just uncheck Facebook above your post and it will only update what you have highlighted (in the example screenshot, just Twitter will be updated).

It will also do great things like shorten any URLs you put in your post so they take up less room.  There are also fun buttons like adding a photo, or adding your current location, etc.  Play around with those and let me know what you like best or what’s most useful.

RESOLUTION TO #2, Part 2 – Setup Google Buzz to link to your Twitter account!

While everyone’s still trying to figure out what the heck to do with Google Buzz, don’t miss out on building rapport with your Google contacts when it’s really easy to post there.

Login to your Gmail account, click on BUZZ in your left menu, and next to your picture and name at the top, it refers to your number of “Connected Sites”.  Click on that link and it opens up this window, where you can click on the services to connect your Google Buzz to.
- For this example, click on the Add button next to Twitter.
- Type in your Twitter username.
- Twitter will ask you for your password and approval, and once you click Approve/OK, it will be connect.
- That’s it!  Now every time you tweet something (from wherever), your tweet will be posted on Google Buzz!

While you’re at it, if you’re using Google Reader or any of the other services listed in Google Buzz, Add them as well!  I’ve found that Buzz is best when it is just connected to what I’m already doing and pulls in auto-posts from various places.  That makes it VERY low maintenance!

What do you think?  Have you used Tweetdeck before, or did you follow these instructions to start using it?  I’d love to hear your experiences with setting any of this up, and even what questions you have that I may be able to help with!  Leave a question/comment below!

Without getting into a detailed history of social media and the Internet, I’d like to answer some of the questions I get on a regular basis from very non-techy people.  The main question being:

I don’t understand why there are so many networking sites, especially (gasp!) Twitter?  I just don’t get it, so I’m not going to use it.

(Twitter getting the most slack as a LOT of people are still avoiding like the plague.)

In order to answer why there have been so many, I’ve found that it’s easiest to explain the progression from a pop culture prospective (the most popular ones used by the most non-techy audience).  In essence, it’s a return to the original, non-complicated way of posting statuses and messages to people in our different social groups.

In the beginning…

I always like to pull out the old Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) that popped up right after the Internet launched, because it seems to have weird relevance on all this today.  All a Bulletin Board System was back in the late 80’s was a pure text page that you could log in, enter a particular topic area or “room”, and have real-time scrolling chat with the others there.  This photo is of a french BBS that gave you the time in different parts of the room, and if you typed in the command “Who”, would show you the list of users in the room and how long they’ve been online.

I bring that up because it seems like we’re constantly trying to get back to that real-time status and chat environment.  Sure, we’ve had chat rooms, then instant messengers, and now social media sites, but along the way, it seems that people got distracted on what they were really after.  Once the internet browsers were created, and websites along with it, people wanted to have a constant presence online, so they created and publicizes their websites and email addresses.

Websites were still so technical though, that they were primarily used for business.  Individuals that had websites were rare, except for those that were technical enough to figure it out and had money enough to pay to have it constantly up.  I’m personally not sure which consumer-site enabled it first, because I’m sure there were many that started around the same time, but these sites started making it easier for individuals to setup websites from a free or low-cost source, like AOL, Geo-cities, etc. that gave you a space and help wizards to setup your own profile.  You still had to know how to setup a website though, but at least by this time, you started having friends that had done it or some people in your family or work network that could advise you.

About this time, a site called SixDegrees.com started to allow you to connect with friends, however it was WAY before the Internet had enough users to make it really stick.  In the US, Friendster was personally the first one to really catch the pop culture wave, with it’s ability to sign up, fill out text info about yourself, add some pictures, then start connecting with your friends around the world.

Friendster – finally a networking site with popularity enough to attract a useful size!

Friendster was great at its time, and really started to give people the ability to both setup a constantly-online profile as well as message and email with their friends.  This was successful because you didn’t have to know anything about websites at all, you just filled out your profile info, uploaded pictures and off you went!  You could connect to friends, add them to your network, and see who you knew in common.

However, the downfall of the site began when people started using it heavily, and realized how clunky it was.  People dealt with the poor user experience while there was little or no popular alternative…

MySpace – better functionality and usability than Friendster, with customizable profiles!!

This opened the door for MySpace.  MySpace was exponentially more popular than Friendster, and started providing additional features and ways to connect with people, including:

• “bulletins” where you can see what others are posting publicly
• a “wall” on your profile so others can post comments to you,
• and the most interesting feature which was the ability to update your profile look-and-feel to keep the same widgets but completely customize what your page looks like, giving it your own personality, which you can change on a regular basis (and lots of people did).

However, what I saw next was an interesting progression, and perhaps a redefining of what people wanted to do withtheir online profile and networking.  Being able to customize your profile was great and all, but again it started to get too technically difficult to “keep up with the Joneses”.  I especially found it tempting and ridden with jealousy whenever I looked at a friend’s profile that had just put a “flashy”, new template on it (pun intended), and then looked at mine to see how boring mine was in comparison.  I started to spend hours researching, setting up, tweaking and re-doing my site almost every month.  I’m not saying everyone was like that, but people in general were spending more and more time updating their profile if they knew how, or trying to ignore it if they didn’t.

Facebook – forget difficult, customizable profiles, just give me status streaming!

During this same time, Facebook came along, bringing all the cool features like a “wall” and comments and pictures, and a new feature of “status” streaming, which everyone now knows is all the rage.  However, one BIG advantage Facebook has over MySpace, is it re-leveled the playing field by restricting the ability to update your profile back to just photos and info.  No hours worrying about what your profile looks like or how it works, no buying websites or MySpace for Dummies to look as cool as your friends.  Now my 82 year old grandma can have a Facebook page (and she does!) and it can look just as cool as mine if she fills everything out and loads pics!

Thus the exodus from MySpace began, and Facebook began to reign supreme because the lack of maintenance required (other than finding a hot default pic) , leaving you free to focus on what you want anyway, which is to connect with friends, post photos, comment on each other’s profiles, and update your status so everyone can know what you’re up to.

Twitter – forget everything EXCEPT for status streaming!!

Following the downward trend of complexity from Myspace to Facebook, along came Twitter.  This essentially stripped EVERYTHING out about your profile, except for some very basic info, and focused solely on status updates.  In fact, Twitter is so stripped down, that the whole point of their service is not only provide a website to update your status and check out others’, but build it as a platform where it can be integrated with other profiles, blogs, sites, apps, anywhere you want your status info.

Even though most people I’m writing this for are still stuck in Facebook land, the whole benefit of Twitter is that inter-connection of status updates.  For those of you that love to stream your whole life, that’s all Twitter focuses on is providing a platform to do that.  There are even free apps that you can download off the Internet (like Tweetdeck), which provides you one place to update your status and read others’, and it will post to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn (a professional networking site), and MySpace currently.  My next post will be discussing some of these tools at a basic level.

Today, these downloadable tools are fairly easy to use, and make updating multiple sites a snap, but there are still several to choose from, each with pros and cons.  I’ll go over these next time…

This is what I saw leading the progression from one social networking site to the next, and there are people still left in the old systems some abandoned along the way.

What were your reasons for moving/not moving onto the new sites/tools?

Social Networking History - http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html

BBS Picture - http://www.marcelgagne.com/cwl062005.html

Google Voice recently updated the settings for Caller ID, and I’ve found that I needed to turn it on to avoid confusing my other contacts that use Google Voice.

The setting is “Caller ID (out)”.  This is for the Caller ID number that your contacts see when you text them. (Currently, it’s for texting only.  As the page shows, caller ID (out) will be available for calls soon.  Currently, it shows your Google Voice number automatically if you call from one of your registered phones.)

There are two options for this setting:

1) “Don’t Change Anything”
This means don’t show your Google Voice number to other Google Voice users.

• Either show the number of the phone you’re using (if it’s not registered with your GV account), or
• show your 406 number (if the phone you’re using is registered on your GV account).

2) “Display my Google Voice number”
This means show your Google Voice number when you text another Google Voice user.

Unfortunately, the default is Option 1.  The default used to be Option 2, which was great, since you don’t need to know the 406 number of other Google Voice users.  Now since Option 1 is the default, I started receiving the 406 number from people I already had their Google Voice number for, so it was definitely confusing.

If you’re using Google Voice actively, I’d highly recommend going into your settings and switching your setting to Option 2.

Leave me a comment, email, tweet or call if you have any questions!

As with the other Gadgets and Lifestyles posts, I like to share how I’m using technology in hopes that other people can understand them easier, and to hear from others more tech-advanced than me on how to get more out of them.

For the longest time, I resisted using RSS feeds.  I didn’t understand them, it seemed annoying everyone trying to get me to “subscribe”, and I just never felt like there was anything with it that would be useful to me.  I didn’t even get the name: RSS.  It means “Really Simple Syndication”, but what does that mean to me?

Then, as I got more into the different Google tools, I saw the Google Reader (Google’s tool they’ve created to assist you in reading different RSS feeds).  So I said, OK, I’ll subscribe to one feed and see how it looks and if it’s something I could use.  I went to one of the blogs that I liked to read, looked for the RSS symbol and clicked on it, then chose Google Reader as the subscribing tool.  (Try it here on my blog with the RSS symbol on the top right of this page!)

Once I subscribed to the post, I went to Google Reader (www.google.com/reader), and I was able to look through the blog post titles and tell really quickly whether I wanted to read them or not.  I added a couple more blogs that I was interested in, including my own blog, and started to have a list of blogs that I was usually interested in what they posted.  In the mornings, I started looking at Google Reader on my iPhone on the bus on the way to work, and it suddenly hit me.  This is the same thing I do with MSBNC mobile, Crain’s mobile and other news sites!

I realized that what I had created was a news site that had sections (blogs) of all my favorite topics, and each morning I can skim the headlines to see which articles I want to read!  No more having to go to several different places to read the morning news, when I could just use Google Reader and get it all in one place!  One additional trick is that most news sites are starting to have RSS feeds of their news articles as well, so you can have your blog posts, press news and anything really, since there are starting to be as many blogs as there are websites nowdays.

There are many different RSS Readers out there, Google Reader is only one of them.  However, from the several that I’ve reviewed personally, Google Reader was the easiest and most consistent when switching from iPhone to desktop and back.  Some additional features available with Google Reader include Sharing, Starring, and several other share functions I haven’t used yet.

“Sharing” posts in Google Reader make the articles available in a list that others can see if they’re “following” your Reader account.

“Starring” posts in Google Reader makes them available in a special STARRED list you can access in one list (in case you want to come back to it later) without having to go to the individual source and try to find the special post again.

There are social networking features in Google Reader as well, just like other networking sites like Facebook, etc.  You can search for your friends by email, etc.  You can then see your friends’ shared posts under the “People you follow” section.

Google is constantly updating their sharing functionality, especially with social networking like Twitter and Facebook.  With the existing functionality pretty cumbersome to use, I’m definitely looking forward to some easier options.  Fortunately, emailing the post is very simple, but as we know, that’s not really “sharing” in the social sense we’re used to today.

Are you using RSS readers?  Which one do you think is the best?  Does it have great social networking sharing features?

Go try Google Reader at www.google.com/reader

One month after the perfect weekend, I finally realized it’s time to share all about it and start working on what’s next!

The last post was the Wednesday that was 10 days before the day.  As I talked about in that post, all the little details were starting to get in motion and coming together.  My team at work had a shower lunch for me and my co-worker, since we were both getting married within a couple weeks of each other.   As I tell Scott, I rarely get truly surprised because I tend to pick up on little details, etc. in order to put 2 and 2 together.  They got me on this one though, even with something as simple as planning a lunch with a co-worker friend (@cbergsted – thanks, C!)  My age must be catching up with my sleuthing skills.

The week of the wedding, we headed down to KY on Tuesday night after work, got in about 11:30pm, and went straight to bed.  Wednesday morning, we were all up early (for us.  Scott’s parents are always up when the sun is, if not before. )  We got our coffee, and immediately started on the lists for what there was to do leading up to Saturday.  We got to work quickly, and before long, we had our first in-person stress to deal with.  For me, the stress before this was each our own, since Scott and I were in Chicago and his parents were at the lake in KY.  But now, we were all together, heading for the finish line, the pressure was on, and for three Type A personalities (yes, 3 ), it wasn’t even Noon on Wednesday before Kim called a “sit-down”.   Without getting into the irrelevant details, I was mad at Scott, and Scott was mad at me, but he was more mad about being in the middle between Kim and I.  Kim said for us not to be mad at each other, but to be mad at her if anything, since she’s the one running the show.  Then she added, “And you better not be mad at me, with everything that we’re doing here…”   It’s funny to think about, but that talk really did the trick.  We talked about it for a little bit, got all the stress out, then we were able to just focus on getting everything done, and setting the little voice in our head aside that tries to analyze everything.

I say this was the point that Kim went from being my “boyfriend’s mother” to being my “mother-in-law”, and I mean that in a very good way.  It was a time when I feel we actually started having a real direct relationship, rather than a relationship through Scott.  This applied to Millard (Scott’s Dad) as well.

By Wednesday night, two of our Groomsmen drove down.  Philip stayed with his parents in town and Scott went to pick up Mike and bring him out to the lake.  By that time, it was pretty late, so we finished up what we could and went to bed.  Thursday morning, we woke up and got coffee again, and updated our lists of things to get done that day before more people started arriving Thursday evening.  It was really great to have more and more people showing up the closer we got to Saturday.  We kept finding out there was so much more to do, we had more and more people to help us finish them.

Friday, same thing…  Coffee, lists, tasks.  The rest of the wedding party, family and those that were planning on coming to the rehearsal and/or rehearsal dinner, were arriving throughout the day.  Having the guests stay at the Moors resort was great since it allowed us room to keep working and setting everything up without feeling like we’re ignoring anyone.  We delivered the welcome baskets on Friday morning that had the itinerary and invitations for everything that was going on that weekend.  Those turned out really well, especially since Kim ended up having an anchor-shaped puncher!  It really added a cute touch to everything we were putting together.

Friday afternoon blended right into the tasks nicely, because Scott and I made sure we had everything together and either completed or delegated so we could get with the family and wedding party for the rehearsal.  First order of business was wine.    We really wanted to make sure people were having a fun time while we were working everything out with the ceremony.  As you can see from a lot of the pictures, this is the first time we’d had everyone together to figure out how the ceremony was actually going to look, placement and everything, so it really started coming together at that point.

Once we were comfortable enough with the rehearsal, we headed into the house for a little bit to relax, while everyone was heading over to the rehearsal dinner next door at the Matlock’s.  The theme was a Country Fixin’s dinner, consisting of real bbq pork, bean, tater salad, homegrown ‘maters, and the like. J  Etiquette says the rehearsal dinner is for the wedding party, family and out-of-town guests, which means there were about 100 people there!  It was really fantastic.  There was a tractor in the yard, with hay bails and pumpkins for a photo op, tons of beer, and even a bonfire at the edge of the lake!  The party officially ended about Midnight, and good thing, because Saturday was jam-packed with activities.

Saturday morning, we got up and finished last-minute details, such as the road signs to help people know where to go.  Like true Project Runway style, we had about 2 hours to get all the final details done before we had to start attending the day’s events.  11:30am we headed over to the Butler’s fabulous house for brunch before the official photography.  My parents and the wedding party came over there for brunch, and then went to the Summarell house to get ready.

Photos were from around 1:30 or 2 until 4pm.  It was so great to have those photos taken.  We really got to have fun and be creative with them, so I can’t wait to see them!  One of the best parts was when Scott’s grandma Mammy and Carville got there.  We had just come up to the cottage to have more pictures taken, and they came around the corner, and there was a collective “gasp” when we saw them.  Mammy wore the most beautiful black shawl/jacket (not sure what to call it?), full neck gold pearl necklace and black dress.  The outfit looked straight out of the 20’s/40’s.  It was magnificent.  The photographer actually stopped and took pictures of them before coming back to finish our pictures. J

Then, it was time.  We headed upstairs at the house where we’d gotten ready, and were able to watch everyone arriving, since there was a window facing the front of the house, and a bigger window facing the patio and lake, where the ceremony was going to be.  While everyone was arriving, we saw someone coming down the hill in an orange jacket, rainbow-striped tie and glasses.  Everyone was like, “Who’s that?!”  Lo and behold, none other than our fantastic Dr. John Wilson from CA. J  Watching everyone arrive was like watching the red carpet or entry to a GQ fashion party.  Everyone just looked fantastic.  The weather had cleared up that morning, before the pictures, after raining for 10 days continuously!

The weather was fantastic, the lake was beautiful, the ceremony came off without a hitch… almost.   The music was playing through all the speakers from the house, including the extended patio, so it could be heard down by the lake.  True Colors – Acoustic Version by Cindy Lauper was playing as the wedding party started the processional down the hill from the house to the lake.  20 seconds into the song, the music cut out.  Obviously, I frantically start running around with Norman the sound man trying to figure out what to do, but by then it was time for me to walk down with my parents, so I immediately had to be “over it”.  I actually said that to Mom, and started my walk down with my parents in silence.  Scott followed behind me with his parents, and the ceremony started.  People have actually said that was even better than having music on, since they could hear the sounds of nature and the lake slapping against the rocks.

We all really feel Paul has found his calling in leading ceremonies, because this was the most beautiful we’d ever heard.  We’d worked on the outline and some of the content together, but the meat of it was completely him.  We couldn’t have asked for a better recognition of the people in our lives and our love for each other than the way he put it to words in the ceremony.  It couldn’t have been more perfect.

Once the ceremony was over, the recessional headed back up to the house.  Norman the sound man had managed to find the problem with the music and fixed it, and the jazz music started and the food and liquor were ready!  The rest was a blur of happiness, relief, excitement and drinking, as we got to say hi to everyone that was there.  We had over 200 people from all over the country, and we were so excited to get to see all of them!  We really wish we could have spent more time with each of them, since most of them were from all over the country!

After the sun had gone down, and people were finishing eating, the wind started picking up, and most people started going inside or on the porch.  We had the cake-cutting inside since it was so windy.  We didn’t think anything of it, so we were expecting the fireworks to start as soon as we were done with the cake.  Once we were done, Scott went outside to tell BJ that we’re ready and to start the fireworks… right when it started raining.  It rained about 3 times for around 5 minutes each.  The bartenders were real troopers and donned their rain jackets in order to keep serving drinks in the rain!  Fortunately, it wasn’t too long before the rain stopped, but the fireworks were too wet to light, so we had to move on and start the dancing.

The dancing started and lasted on well into the night, with everyone having such a great time.  At one point, Tarik chased me down and was very insistent on playing Party in the USA by Miley Cirus.  I was having so much fun that I didn’t think anything of it, but he kept insisting on where my computer was that was playing the music.  Once I showed him, I went outside, and started warning people not to dance on the patio since it was wet and slippery.  Scott had Blake and his friend squeegie it off and people started dancing out there.  Someone grabbed me and put me on the steps of the porch, then they grabbed Scott and put him up beside me.  Party in the USA came on and 20 of our friends busted out into a choreographed dance!!  Oh yes, a flash mob at our wedding reception!  Our wedding was now complete.  I REALLY wish we could’ve taken a video of it, but it was apparently too dark, as there were several people that tried. L  Thank you SO much to all of you!! I really felt like Oprah at that moment.. “THAT WAS SOOO COOL!!”

The rest of the night was drinking and dancing and fun.  We ended up going to bed about 4am, and at 7:30 or 8am the next morning, Kim came to our room and said her phrase, “I don’t know how to tell you this…, but you need to get up and go over to the brunch…”

It was a showtunes brunch over at the Moors resort, and there wouldn’t be any showtunes before we got there since we had all the music, speakers, etc.!  We got over there, everyone was already mostly there surprisingly (did these people sleep at all??!). J

After the brunch, most everyone started their travel back home, and we went out with our friends that rented a boat, and BJ took my parents, Jennifer, Drew and Philip out with Scott and I, then the boys met up with John on his boat and went skiing.  We came back and took my parents to the airport, sent Jennifer and Drew on their way back to KC, and hung out the rest of the afternoon.  Scott’s parents fixed a great dinner that we had out on the patio that night, and stayed out there talking and catching up.

The next day the rest of the boys that were there left to go home, and we stayed until Wednesday afternoon before heading back to Chicago.

When we thought of the pictures in our head, I’d say that was exactly how we’d pictured it, but it was even better than that. It really was the perfect weekend.  Thank you so much to everyone that traveled there to be part of it, to those of you that couldn’t make it, and for all the well-wishes that we’ve received from so many people that mean so much to us.  You all are amazing, and this could never have been possible without you.

You can see the video and I’ll be adding more pictures to our wedding website at www.ScottAndBrandon.com.

I’ve written a couple posts about this, but have figured out the last piece of the puzzle to feel comfortable that everything is taken care of with switching to my Google Voice number, using my iPhone, without having to use an app.  I originally had to jailbreak my phone to get the GV mobile app, but now I know I didn’t need to do that!

Step 1: Sign up for a Google Voice invite.
Go to www.google.com/voice and request an invite (or let me know, since I have 3 invites left to give out, as of today )

Step 2: Pick a new number (or setup your existing number) on the Google Voice setup website.
The big news yesterday is that you now have the ability to use your existing number as your Google Voice number.  I personally have always thought it’s more fun to pick your own number though, obviously.

You lose a lot of the cool functionality (at least right now) if you use your own number for Google Voice, too.  The main thing you currently lose is the ability to SMS from your Google Voice number, and you won’t really be able to complete a full transition without that, now will you?!
More details on new vs. existing number on the Google Voice blog here:

http://www.google.com/support/voice/bin/answer.py?answer=164819

Step 3: Setup your phones you want to be able to deliver calls and SMS to.
If the setup process doesn’t have you enter your existing phone, or you have more phones you want to be able to use your Google Voice service with, then go to the Google Voice website, choose SETTINGS on the top right menu, and the default tab is PHONES.
Click “Add another phone” and fill out the phone you want to setup.  You need to be near that phone, since you’ll be need to answer it to verify the setup.

Step 4: Login to the Google Voice website and start sending SMS messages to your contacts.
I know this is tedious, but if Apple would just approve the stupid Google app, we wouldn’t have to do any of this step!
Send them a message like “Hey there! This is my new number! Save it and reply with your name!”

The “reply with your name” part is important because that’s how you’ll who is texting you back because of Step 4.

Step 5: Save the 406 numbers from the reply text messages as their new numbers.
Each of the replies will come from Google’s own “406″ number for that contact.  This 406 number is for you for your contact, but it’s permanent so you can store it as the GVoice number for this contact.  For more info about what the 406 numbers are, see my previous post on Switching to Google Voice – Part 1.

Use it to call or text this contact and it will look like it’s coming from your Google Voice number.

SIDE NOTE: If your contact has Google Voice too, you’ll just need to save their Google Voice number.  As long as your mobile phone is setup as one of your Google Voice phones, you just have to call/SMS their GV number and they’ll see it’s from your GV number!

YOU’RE DONE!
That’s it!  Once you have everyone’s 406 (GV Reference) number, you’re good to go.  Just use that number instead of their actual number and it will look like everything is coming from your Google Voice number.

This has been especially great so far in practice for when my phone dies and I’m out somewhere without my charger.  I can switch it to deliver to a friend’s phone and receive my calls and SMS’s there, or I can just jump on the GV website and do everything from there as well.

PRO’S:
- Phone freedom.  Place calls and use SMS anywhere – either using the phone or the GV mobile website.
- GV website that I can use instead of my phone, saving my precious battery for syncing, games, etc.
- Got to choose the sexy, elusive 917 Manhattan area code.
- Transcription of voicemails to the GV website, to my email and to my SMS.. Screw AT&T and getting voicemail notifications days after the call was missed! Not once has it happened with Google Voice yet.

CON’S:
- The 406 GV reference number inconvenience because Apple won’t approve the GV app. (again, grrrr….)
- None other I can think of!

What about you?  What are the Pro’s and Con’s that you can think of?

What questions or problems did you have with The Switch?

Want a Google Voice invite?  Leave a comment and let me know!

I created an iPhone icon for my business website last year, and being such the iPhone fanatic, I had to have one for my WordPress blog too, of course!  I showed a couple people and they were instantly wanting to know how to get one themselves, so here we are!

1. Create an icon (45×45 pixels)
First off, create an icon that you’d want to use.  The common sizing to use is 45×45 pixels.  They usually consist of a picture or a word or two.  Take a look around the iTunes App Store for ideas.

Once you know what kind of icon you want, I used Microsoft Paint previously (with Windows), and on my Mac, I used Adobe Photoshop.  I saved them as .png files, but you can use .jpg’s and others as well.  I recommend .png or .jpg.

Actually, I came up with mine as my online name is bhbeak (pronounced b-h-beak).  Hollembeak is my last name, so my friends made h-beak my celebrity last name.   I’ve made a few options before landing on wanting a cartoon duck bill as the icon.  Ok, so yes, I realize it’s a bill and not a beak, but you get the idea.

Scott’s first reaction was, “Why the duck bill?”  So, one question.. should I use bhbeak or BHbeak to help show that it’s the “beak” in the name that the picture stands for?

OR ??

2.  Copy the file via FTP to your mobile site.
Once you have your icon file, you need to copy it to your site.

For a regular website, you just put it in your root directory as iphone-icon.png (or whatever you want to call it, as long as you use the same name and extension in your web page code).

If you have a WordPress blog, just copy the file to your wp-content/themes/(theme name) folder.

If you have a mobile WordPress blog theme, copy the file to your wp-content/themes/(mobile theme name) folder as well.

3.  Add the icon reference to your site.
Then, add this line to your header file (again, I named my file “iphone-icon.png”):
<link rel=”apple-touch-icon” href=”<?php bloginfo(‘template_url’); ?>/iphone-icon.png” />

The full path I used was below, but depending on your theme file structure, yours may be different.
/wp-content/themes/(blog theme)/header/header-default.php

That’s it!  Now you can navigate to your site on your iPhone, click the + sign on the bottom nav bar, click Add to Home Screen, then just name it and save!

And there it is (on the bottom row)!

The background and no text labels are courtesy of Winterboard configuration, provided by jailbreaking my iPhone.  It’s pretty slick now, but I’ll have to cover all that in a different post.

Let me know what you think about the instructions for creating and uploading your own iPhone app!

It works!  Text messaging and phone calls work using my Google Voice phone number from my iPhone 3G!!  WITHOUT AN APP!

I’m not entirely sure if the recent VOIP announcement by AT&T at the CTIA conference this week, but my iPhone is now able to make calls to the 406 reference numbers the Google Voice assigns to all my contacts!  These 406 reference numbers are only for me to my contacts (see my previous post about Transitioning to Google Voice – Part 1 for more on how the 406 numbers work), and until this week, I couldn’t make any calls to those numbers, only text messaging worked with them.

Now I can make calls to them as well!  The setup is a little annoying, as I have to have each of my contacts text me so I can get their 406 reference number, but then I can save that number as their main number that I call and SMS, and it looks to them like I’m calling/texting from my Google Voice number!

I realized that I don’t necessarily call or text EVERYONE in my phone book, so I’m not working to give everyone my number yet, but definitely everyone I text/call a lot.   If someone texts me and I haven’t gotten their 406 reference number yet, I’ll respond from the Google Voice website so it can be from my GV number, and when they text back, I’ll get their 406 reference number.

This was pretty much all I was waiting for to complete my transition to Google Voice!  The final step that the notorious Google Voice App could provide (that Apple has constantly denied/lied about) would eliminate having to get and store the 406 reference number.  Having the app use the native iPhone functionality, you’d just start the app and do everything the Phone and Messages apps do.  For now, though, I’m just over-joyed I get to use the native functionality in the iPhone with my Google Voice number, albeit with a workaround!

Has anyone else tried this yet with your iPhone?  Did you get it to work, too?

LLLLLLLLLLet’s get ready to rummmmmmble!!  Brandon vs. Bread Maker!!

One of our fantastic wedding gifts was a Cuisinart Bread Machine, and since I’ve been dying to use it, I decided to make Sun-Dried Tomato & Mozzarella bread tonight!  I got the machine out, carefully put the ingredients in, matching the exact order in the recipe of course (otherwise, the bread machine gods might smite me.. or so the instruction book would have me feel..), and pushed the appropriate buttons for a 2lb. loaf with medium crust and rapid-rise yeast.  I stood over the machine looking in the sunroof window and watching with glee as the mixing/kneading paddle whipped that dough into shape! (Yes, it was THAT exciting!)

During the kneading process, I was watching it a little too much and not trusting it enough, so I used a rubber spatula and scraped the dough in the corners back “into play” with the paddle.   I finally decided to leave it alone and went about my business of the evening, figuring out what we’re fixing for dinner, and CLUNK!  What on earth could that be?  I went to the machine, and the paddle wasn’t turning, and there was just a whirring sound!  Hmph.. I opened the lid, and realized the bread holder had popped off it’s seat, and the paddle could no longer turn.  I pushed it back down, it started turning again normally, and I went back about my business… CLUNK!  I raced back to the machine, and it had done it again!

“FAIL!”, I immediately thought, and I pushed it back down again.  Scott then started the Spanish Inquisition (catching me totally off-guard, of course ).. and we began to investigate the inner workings of the bread machine with help from the instruction booklet and the Internet..

CLUNK! .. “GRRR!!”, I said out-loud.  We immediately paused the bread during the kneading process, pulled the bread container out of the machine, looked all around for anything to signal that its purpose was to hold it in place, and not a single thing was to be found.  Sure, there are side flaps which hold it centered, and a base that spins and turns the paddle, but nothing with any downward resistance to hold the bread container in place.  Can anyone say “design flaw”?  The great thing about this is, we’re apparently not the first people to figure this out either.  Scott found a site where people have discussion groups, comments, etc. about bread machines (http://www.breadmachinedigest.com, if you can believe it ), and apparently this is one of the most talked about complaints with the Cuisinart machine!!  Loves it..

So, we’ve been toying with how we could finagle keeping the pan pressed down during the kneading cycle, and haven’t come up with a solution yet, but I’m sure it’s going to be clipping the bread container to the stabilizing side flaps to hold it down, too.  Just one of the fun things about owning appliances.  I love that it seems to be a product flaw and not an individual flaw with just this machine.

After all this, the bread is delicious!  I’ve been so excited to get one of these because I had one about 10 years ago and was able to make THE BEST cinnamon rolls that could even make Ann Sather jealous!   If you’re lucky, I’ll make those next!..