RyanErickson.com

Change.gov now using IntenseDebate for comments

2008-12-04T16:51:00.004-05:00

According to myself I'm not really supposed to be here right now, but I had something to day real quick. I was reading though my Feedly feeds and came across a post from Change.gov: Building the community: A guide to comments. It's not really the post I care about as much as the fact that Change.gov is now using the off-the-shelf comment services of IntneseDebate. I use it on both this blog and that of CGBlog.org. It's very diverse and has some very useful features (even more it you're using Wordpress). Now if we can get the rest of government to use it, I'll only have to use my single login!

CONTACT ME | TWITTER ME | CALL: 206.607.9331

Online vacation coming right up...

2008-12-03T13:23:00.002-05:00

I'll be heading off line (for the most part) for a few weeks as the baby, school, family, and work are beginning to take the best of me. I'll be available by email, but don't expect me to get back with you in a quick fashion.

CONTACT ME | TWITTER ME | CALL: 206.607.9331

It takes a RAZR to save a life.

2008-11-21T11:54:00.004-05:00

This is one of those stories that if it has to happen to you, you hope it goes down like this. The Boy Genius Report has the story of the man saved by his Moto RAZR.

Ronald “R.J.” Richard was doing yard work on his 5-acre property in St. Tammany, Louisiana when something struck him in the chest right above his heart. Richard described the impact as “a punch in the chest,” and initially thought some debris had been kicked up by his lawn mower. When the 68-year-old reached under his sweater and removed the cell phone clipped to his overalls to see if it had been damaged by the impact, a single .45 caliber bullet dropped into his lap. According to the report, someone had fired the round from woods roughly 1/4-mile from Richard’s home, without malicious intent, and inadvertently struck the man in the chest. The cellphone and case, which Richard doesn’t ordinarily clip to the front of his overalls, took 100% of the damage from the bullet and the man walked away without a scratch. Sure an iPhone might keep you entertained for hours, but a RAZR will take a bullet for you. Hit the read link of a video report.

You can see the video of it here. My phone wouldn't do that for me...

CONTACT ME | TWITTER ME | CALL: 206.607.9331

If the Matrix ran on Windows... VERY funny.

2008-11-15T19:55:00.000-05:00

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

CONTACT ME | TWITTER ME | CALL: 206.607.9331

Self Induced Break

2008-11-10T04:11:00.001-05:00

I've reached that point- time for a little time to do what I want. Be back later.

CONTACT ME | TWITTER ME | CALL: 206.607.9331

GrandCentral? Anyone, Anyone?

2008-10-26T15:13:00.002-04:00

Does anyone out there know what is going on with (now) Google's GrandCentral phone/voice mail service? I still use it to a degree, but wonder what it to become of them. Their blog even seems dead. Anyone, Anyone?

Dunch and Linner: Not the same thing!

2008-10-26T14:39:00.004-04:00

As I was driving to work this morning I had a thought as to what the meaning of both Linner and Dunch are. It's one of those things that one shouldn't think about at 5 a.m. as it's very distracting. But of the two words in question, which one is first, or are they the same?

First off, what is Linner/Dunch? Everyone's favorite unofficial dictionary, (next to Wiktinary) Urban Dictionary, defines Linner as "The meal between lunch and dinner, just as brunch is the meal between breakfast and lunch." Of course we all knew that. Same dictionary, different word, Dunch: "Dunch refers to a meal enjoyed subsequent to lunch but prior to dinner." However, the Urban Dictionary goes further and states that dunch "should be distinguished from linner, another meal occurring in the post-lunch, pre-dinner interval, in that dunch occurs after linner, closer to dinner time." Hmm- I disagree.

Looking at the words Linner and Dunch you will note that the words as a whole only have a one letter representation for what the Urban Dictionary states they should be; Linner to be closer to lunch and Dunch to be closer to dinner. This will not do. The majority of each word clearly stress' it should be the other way around. As such I proclaim that in the afternoon four-meal plan (don't get me going on the whole Toco Bell forth meal campaign...) I proclaim a reordering of the meals to Lunch, Dunch, Linner, and then Dinner.

There really isn't any point to this post other than the satisfaction I have gained knowing that I have cleared the air with the true order to the afternoon meals.

CONTACT ME | TWITTER ME | CALL: 206.607.9331

New Picture of future girl #3

2008-10-21T21:10:00.006-04:00

It's been a while, oh well... life. None the less, I wanted to share with you our latest picture of #3. Tami had an ultrasound today (almost 30 weeks) which showed our near arrival pushing 4lbs. This is a picture of her looking at you. I didn't want put things on the picture to ruin it, so it's a little like a game of Wheres Waldo when trying to find her eyes, nose, and mouth. But if my 5 year old can do it, I'm sure you can too. (HINT: Her head is the blob on the left.)

CONTACT ME | TWITTER ME | CALL: 206.607.9331

Are you/your site popular on Twitter? Find out with TweetBeep

2008-10-02T19:52:00.010-04:00

This site is Recommended

I'm not real sure where I came across this great site, but none the less I use it and it works. The site is TweetBeep.com and it's a Twitter alerting service. Currently I use it to keep track of all things Coast Guard and/or USCG as it's my side job/hobby to keep track of such things. It's amazing how many people in the Twittervers actually discuss the service, good and bad. Also if you happen to be of the narcissistic type you could use it to keep track of yourself. In fact that's part of the sites opening statement-

Be the first to know who's twittering about you, your products, your company, or your website.

You're even able to see all instances of people linking to a specific site even if it's embedded in a shortened URL (i.e. is.gd, TinyURL...) a must as the 140 character limit could hamper the tracking if it didn't do as such.

The best part of the service is you don't have to go to it, it comes to you in the form of an eMail. You can choose to have it check and send you summery once an hour or once a day. I recommend once a day if your site/service/product is popular... that is so long as you aren't that narcissistic guy I'm referring to above, for you, do once an hour. ;)

This is probably Ryan Erickson's (yep in the third person no less) favorite external Twitter application, that is next to say Twhril... but as their not in the same field I would have to default to TweetBeep!

CONTACT ME | TWITTER ME | CALL: 206.607.9331

The Ten Commandments of Blogging are here

2008-10-01T08:05:00.000-04:00

Short but sweet... over on Download Squad they have the answer I have been looking for with regards to "the rules of blogging." In fact, it's better than the rules, it's the "Ten Blogging Commandments." It was presented at the "Godblogs" conference in Britain (Times Online). Can you follow 'em?

You shall not put your blog before your integrity
You shall not make an idol of your blog
You shall not misuse your screen name by using your anonymity to sin
Remember the Sabbath day by taking one day off a week from your blog
Honour your fellow-bloggers above yourselves and do not give undue significance to their mistakes
You shall not murder someone else's honour, reputation or feelings
You shall not use the web to commit or permit adultery in your mind
You shall not steal another person's content
You shall not give false testimony against your fellow-blogger
You shall not covet your neighbour's blog ranking. Be content with your own content

I'll let you know if I sin or not... or maybe I won't.

I feel like a chump waiting for Chi.mp

2008-09-30T15:02:00.000-04:00

Not Recommended, yet

Chi.mp feels cheep; can one get their money back from a free service? Anyway, I find that I'm usually one who is wide open to new sites and what they can do for the "Social Society." However, this time I feel as if I was had. There was a lot of publicity for Chi.mp the "Content Hub and Identity Management Platform" in the recent month which got me excited. The basic premise was to have a place to keep track of your entire social life in a single place. Well, I gotta say I'm sorely disappointed. Last week Louis Gray re-quoted someone at CNET and I'm going to as well- "I'll tell you what Chi.mp is. It's venture money getting set on fire."

What's really disappointing about the site isn't the fact that is kinda static, it the fact that it's REAL static. Case in point- here is my page. Now I'm not a professional web designer, I'm far from it- but my basic design skills that I do have would allow me to make a better looking page than this. And with all the money that the Chi.mp folks got you would think they would spend less on hittin' the party scene and more on a good web programmer. My recommendation for the future of the site? Keep working towards the goal you hyped us all up about, I'm sure we'll get there one day. Oh, and before someone tries to "remind" me that they are in Alpha, I know. They need to stay in Alpha for a little longer...

So what authority do I have to make such statements? None, I'm an 'Average Joe' with basic experiences in the world of the web. But I do know what a good site looks and feels like. An example is FriendFeed, though a little crowed at times it flows well, give relevant information in an interactive manner.

But hey, if your looking for another domain name you can get your very own .mp address.

I'll revisit the Chi.mp world with you again later when they get to Beta. ~Average Joe

Be a smarter parent... check out these sites

2008-09-30T09:00:00.002-04:00

Recommended

Being a dad is fun, frustrating, sad, boring, hard, mind melding, and loving. I won't lie to you and tell you I'm a perfect father, or even a great father for that matter, however, I try. There are times when my wife (love her bunches) needs to remind me to get back here to earth as I will eventually start floating away to internet land and cease to notice the family anymore. I just got back.

Being a Dad today is fun- kids are smarter now. My oldest, Asia, is really into crafts. If it were up to her she would continue to color, glue, paint, cut, and then glue some more all day long- alas there is school to contend with (Kindergarten type). And when I mean crafts I'm not just talking about drawing a stick picture of a cat and calling it a day, no. Asia goes above an beyond- from her last creative streak her and her sister were wearing homemade paper respirators, they were firefighters!

My youngest, Liberty, is 2.5 years of age and one tough cookie. If it weren't for her little size she would put holes in the walls as she runs into 'em. However, her brain, vocabulary, and feet are growing fast enough that one day we may actually have to worry about that.

Where is this going? Glad you asked- as an internet junkie I have come across a few sites that cater to the fatherly/parenting types. In fact my latest find is instructional videos for dads/parents (below). So I thought I would share my list of places to help hone your parenting skills (I'm wokin' it) or to verify that your child isn't the only one in the world who can't say the word 'strawberry' right.

As it was Chris Brogan who got me started down this path I'll give his site the top spot. Mr. Brogan is touted as one of the top social media and technology gurus out there, so when he speaks about something new (in tech) people listen. However, his newest venture seems to be a little closer to home as it's about being a parent, which he is. The site is Dad-O-Matic catering to... Dads. The vision for the site is simple
The project is simple: build a place for dads to share thoughts and ideas about parenting. This can be views, news, reviews, and advice. You don’t have to be a dad to participate. I just wanted to blog from a Dad’s perspective.
The best part about this site is the wide array of contributors and their realism in the text.

My next pick is for those of us (notice I didn't say you) who have a short attention span. DadLabs - Advice for Dads on Fatherhood, parenting, children, wives, marriage, mothers and comedy. This site great as it's mostly video. The first one I saw was How to Wear a Ba by Bjorn, Dude. Oh I so wish I had this one when Asia was born. The site is small (as in people on their forums) but growing (as in a few hundred videos). But lest not forget the blog which is chalk full of ideas and info for parents and children alike. Side note: it's one of the nicest Ning sites I've seen.

Next on the list may not be for the faint of heart so far as parenting is concerned. Or if you are aren't the one running the household on a daily basis, you may want to ask permission before conducting any of these hacks. Hacks? Oh, yeah, sorry, the name of the site is Parent Hacks. Seemingly you would think this site would be aimed at children trying to figure out their parents. However, this is in fact aimed at us. Thus far I would have to say this site has the best tag line of 'em all: parenting tips from the real experts: actual parents. Now I noted this site isn't for the faint of heart, example post: In case of allergy, give the first taste of peanuts in the doctor's office. It's actually kind of useful in a "well duh" kind of way. I recommend it.

GNMParents: This site is similar to that of Dad-O-Matic so far as its stated purpose as a collective-knowledge-by-parents-blog. The general tone of the site is "here is some information for you" as given by other parents. A rather truthful post "The ABC's of Burping" is dead on the money... it's just a phase.

Up until this point those were my only real reads, but I proposed the question of other parenting websites to the Twitter community and was given a fair amount of feedback. Here are some of those sites:

Fellow twitter'er BBerg73 sent me the link to All Pro Dad a football centric site/blog. From their page-
All Pro Dad is Family First's innovative program helping men to become better fathers. All Pro Dad has 54 NFL spokesmen, multiple events with NFL teams, 1,000 All Pro Dad's Day chapters, and Play of the Day daily emails that reach 40,000 fathers each day.

User's mjkeliher and tumblon (one in the same?) sent me the skinny on the site Tumblon a site focused on learning, sharing, and recording information on your children and their milestones. From their site-
Tumblon helps parents understand and nurture their children's growth, by informing and inspiring them to engage in the joys of parenting.
I had a chance to look through the site and I will say I'm impressed... I'll keep an eye on this on.

Fellow CGBlog contributor veryuseful send me a link to Geekdad, a Wired Blog. This one used to be in my arsenal normal sites when Asia was born and I seemed to have lost track of it. I'm fairly sure most of you are aware of it- it's for geek dads (ME).

And finely- this is a site my wife frequents often, it called the Toby Show. It's a blog without a specific topic, however, it's all about the art of parenting in the middle of nowhere... Idaho; that would be nice.

I'm always looking for more site to 'help' in this realm... got anymore ideas?

The Full Metal Rubber Band Gun

2008-09-27T19:33:00.003-04:00

There comes a time when the course of weapons manufacturing take a drastic turn and old is new... oh who am I kidding. I just wanted to show off this little gem I found on Danger Room, the Full Metal Rubber Band Gun. Where was this when I was in Junior High?

My To-Do List

2008-09-23T02:17:00.002-04:00

This is my test of the Google Docs publishing feature and also serves as my open to-do list for this site and that of CGBlog.org. This isn't serving any other purpose other than to have my list public so I remember to work on it, nor is it in any particular order.

Finish School (Contemporary Intelligence);
Collapse the 'link' and 'contributor' page in CGBlog to the main site;
Open the CGBlog Project page;
Bloggers vs. Real Media;
CGBlog banner/logo opportunity (not contest)
Change comment system on RE to IntenseDebate
Re-add the Wiki Link
Re-Name Wiki to 'An Unofficial Coast Guard Wiki'
Work on Wiki layout

Yammer... um, not so much.

2008-09-19T14:32:00.002-04:00

Over on my other blog, that is CGBlog, I did a post about 2 weeks ago on the TechCruch50 winner Yammer. I've had time to play with it, and well, I'm not impressed.

First what's Yammer? In the simplest terms possible this is a Twitter clone aimed at the corporate world, or any world for that matter that has a unique email address to which others can use and join. For instance anyone can join Twitter with the plethora of eMail addresses out there, however, to join into Yammer, as a group, you must have the same email endings (i.e. @ryanerickson.com could get me a private RyanErickson group). I originally brought it up to the CGBlog public as a tool for communicating between each other for collaboration purposes. In fact, this was my exact quote from that post:

So the question is there: what could we, the Coast Guard, use this for? Well I'm glad you asked. As a Junior Officer one is expected to do a lot of collaborative projects with very little interaction. And a lot of this is done away from the office and without your uscg.mil eMail address. If you are like me you have a Mac and can't use the new web interface to get your work eMail, or your just away from your computer all the time. This is a perfect tool to keep in touch on said projects. You could use Twitter, but everyone else is there too; you could use SMS (i.e. text messages), but there is no place to view the history, this could potentially be solved by the use of Yammer (only in theory as I haven't gotten to my work email to retrieve my login info). Also mind you this isn't a secure environment, i.e. no OPSEC.

Well, as I noted above I've had a little time to play with it and my impression of it as a useful tool within the CG is... not so much. Though in theory this could be a great tool the reality of it is simple- if no one uses it it's not going to get used... Duh you say? Well it's that simple. However, after further thinking about it I still can't see it's practicality unless (and I haven't tried this) you can further break it down to smaller user groups. For lord knows I don’t really care what's going on in Topeka, KS at the Finance Center.

In closing I think I jumped on the bandwagon a little too fast, besides the Coast Guard could just get its own install of Identi.ca for free (open source is good). It is again a great tool, unless in theory but when put to the test I don't think it would really work for what we need, unless mandated... Twitter anyone?

Updated: Photo's of the Girls

2008-08-22T17:18:00.002-04:00

Grandparents and Family, we just added some pictures of the girls to the Google photo site (a.k.a. Picasa)... of which can be found on the navigation pane on the right. My how they grow when you don't see them everyday 'eh?

I'll be further outnumbered with number 3 on her way

2008-08-19T20:47:00.007-04:00

Well that time is upon us here in the Erickson household to once again remind Dad who is really running the house. I will admit I often, well EVERYDAY, feel as if I am out numbered, and that number has officially increased as of yesterday... that is, on picture paper.

Tami was able to get into our local hospital for the military types, Portsmouth Naval (BIG place) to have our 20 week ultrasound completed. Mind you this is not a child friendly hospital so while she was getting her belly oozed with the cold green jelly the girls and I went to the park to await the news of how Dad was, again, being further outnumbered.

As our friends and family are aware we don't mind giving up the sex of our unborn children, however, the name shall remain a secret... but I'll tell you her name won't be
Ryan. Feel free to speculate though, it's always nice to see what names people can come up with. Oh, and the due date is, as of now, January 4, 2009. :)

At least I still have my two male cats... though their afraid of their older sister... bummer for us.

Umm...

2008-07-12T22:10:00.000-04:00

we've made it to Virginia!

Is "this WEEK in TECH" gone?

2008-07-12T00:38:00.000-04:00

Well if you were to follow the signs given by Feedly one might think our favorite Netcasting site TWIT is gone, or better yet, just reached the end... but alas it's only the mistake of some beta software... though I have given up my Google Reader for it.

Well I thought it was funny. :/

Almost outa there

2008-06-27T00:05:00.000-04:00

We're outa there... for the most part. Today was our last big day for cleaning the house and all we have left is to get the carpets cleaned and turn the house over. As of now we are staying in out temporary quarters here has the wonderful Marriott. I got another week of work next week then it's on our way to the other coast. We'll keep you posted.

Are you taller than Scott Baio? I am.

2008-06-24T02:14:00.000-04:00

Not only that, I'm taller than Paul Newman and Mr. T, but shorter than Morgan Freeman.

I was looking around for something interesting to read this evening when I stumbled upon the most interesting thing all night... a height gauge to pit oneself against the stars of the world. Found via Downloadsquad I jumped on over to Ringophone.com to test my vertical prowess. This was actually fairly entertaining for about 4.3 minutes. Then I decided to blog about it to help you fulfill 4.3 minutes of your day. However, it should be noted that this is an obvious attempt for this site to get you to use their ring tone search... don't. If you need help making a ring tone, get in touch with me.

My review on "The Moving Process"

2008-06-23T02:44:00.000-04:00

It sucks! Plain and simple, this is not, for most, a fun time in life. It's not so much that we hate the idea of going to a new place, making new friends, and getting to meet new people... no, the part I hate is the preparation to have all of our crap hauled away to the distant lands we get to live in. Now I know I shouldn't be complaining about it so much as we don't have to pack ourselves out (the CG pays for that), but getting the house ready for the movers is more than enough stress for my wife and I. This move will also be the first time we take two cars. Oh, and did I mention we are moving from Seattle, WA to Portsmouth, VA- as in Virginia. So the whole two car thing takes on a new meaning when we are both driving the whole way with our two lovely daughters and three spoiled (by Tami) cats. Oh, well... it's the 3-4 year cycle we get to endure as I get paid to serve this great nation.

As I noted before you can follow out adventure via Twitter (here) and the postings of pictures here on the right side of the blog.

What's in your browser? My answer

2008-06-16T01:46:00.000-04:00

Over on Peter Stinson's blog Tidewater Musings (new design) the question of what's in your bag was asked... with regards to "What's in your browser?" So I thought I would run down what I'm using right now, and my normal sites... first off I'm currently using Safari, though my normal is Firefox... the better browser (ouch, my wife just hit me). We truly do have a browser war in this family!

Passpack: An online password keeper, better than a traperkeeper. Though I'm not too trusting of it yet, it's come in handy for some of those commonly used websites.
Blogger: It's what's holding this site together.
Google Reader: It's my choice for an RSS reader, also used on my phone to keep up with the web on the go.
twitterfeed.com: I'm on this huge Twitter bandwagon right now so just go along with it... this site is used to send those same RSS feeds above to my twitter account. I would like to recommend signing up for the CGBlog.org Twitter feed.
YouMail.com: This one of my newest web2.0 finds- this is a FREE cell phone voice mail replacement. In short, the site gives you total control over your voice mail all the way down to individual callers... thus far I'm diggin' it.
Google Mail: Do I really need to explain... it's my RyanErickson.com mail, via Google Apps.

And for what I'm using on my desktop...

Twhirl: A desktop Twitter client.

Not much too it, but it's what I'm using now.

Work, work, work, family, and more work...

2008-06-13T18:04:00.000-04:00

It's been sometime since I posted anything, and for that, well I can't really apologize. I recently came off of vacation and am now hitting the work pretty hard as we're getting ready to move away from our ~~sunny~~ cloudy slice of heaven here in the Seattle area to our new residence in the Portsmouth, VA area. 'Tis my time to transfer, and there I go- headin' to East side. A lot of things to get done before the move, and even more after the move. I'll be posting updates between now and then, and for those of you who would like to follow us across this great nation you can follow us on Twitter. You can find me at Twitter.com/RyanErickson. I'll be checking back in soon- 'till then...

Oh, and before I forget- you can also check out the newest project of the CGBlog team at wiki.cgblog.org... its, well, a Wiki.

$8 a gallon, and you'll like it! Say what?

2008-05-30T12:42:00.000-04:00

Americans should be celebrating rather than shuddering over the arrival of $4-a-gallon gasoline.

I'm sorry, what? Well that's what Chris Pummer on Market Watch is sayin'. Any you know, he may be right... We are too dependent on the "black gold." So why is this a good thing?

RIP for the internal-combustion engine
Economic stimulus
Wither the Middle East's clout
Deflating oil potentates
Mass-transit development
An antidote to sprawl
Restoration of financial discipline
Easing global tensions

For further clarification on what the above rambling of the EIGHT actually means check out the article on Market Watch.

And for clarification, yes, this is outside my normal rambling... it's amazing what happens when you get board sitting at a garage sale. ;)