Lost In Madison

Wow I guess you can really say I have indeed fell of the interwebz lately! I have been super busy and honestly am not sure it will slow down for a little longer. Last most of you knew I/we (at work) had been gearing up for a meeting with a national product manufacturing company regarding an existing product of ours, and a new product we were just on the verge of launching. That was back on the 20th of this month. The meeting was awesome! In fact it was a slam dunk on our part. (Thanks for asking) According to the people we were presenting our products to they want them NOW, that is…. if they had anything to say about actually making the final decision within their company that is.
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Friday night I was working on my computer when all of a sudden AVG (antivirus) flagged my iTunes directory as having a virus. OMG! NOT my iTunes! After much trouble shooting to find the culprit I finally realized that it was AVG and NOT my iTunes. It seems that the new update will flag iTunes as having a virus but it really doesn’t. What’s the cure? Simple, update your AVG database real quick and the issue should go away. Wheww that was a close one… I think… Yay antivirus updates???

I hate this little paper, what a waste it just sits around my house until I have a large stack. Then it goes out to the recycling bin. HOW STUPID! Get with the times Cap Times, if I wanted your junk mail I would have signed up for it! This little paper is the real world example of SPAM!
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So ya, I came to the serious realization today that I am in fact a full blown “Date a Phobe”! I mean I kinda have known this for a while but I guess I am just willing to admit it now. No, No, I don’t mean I am afraid of going on dates…. Yup, I can hear your keyboard furiously typing away right now! LOL But that’s a different topic. I mean I have a major issue with the expiration dates listed on consumable products.
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I like to shop online. And I know most of you do too. I was watching some of Chris Pirillo’s videos and watched one about MonkeyJar.com [click here to watch it] it’s a way to earn cash back on everything we buy, and it’s real easy to use. Read more…

Ok so we all know social networks is the big thing these days, and it seems the more you join the better… Right?? Well at some point you begin to loose track of where you are and what you are doing. This is the case for me. I only belong to 8 Social Network type sites + my own personally hosted blog, but it started to become very difficult to keep all of them well groomed. I needed a solution, and so far I think I may have found it. Keep in mind this is a mix of stuff that I use to attempt to stay on top of my social status.

First off my blog is my #1 location period. If everything was to fall away for simplicity sake, my blog would still be standing. With that said here is my list of other locations I belong to in basic order of importance to me.

Picasa Photo Albums = My online photo Albums
FaceBook = Couple of friends had it so I had to also, right?
Linkedin = Couple of friends had it so I had to also, right?
Twitter = Couple of friends had it so I had to also, right?
Delicious = My solution to my bookmarking woes.
YouTube = Location to host any random videos I want.
Pandora = My music site

So how do I manage these spots? Ok here is the break down…

Picasa Photo Albums is managed with the Picasa photo software (it’s free from Google). Oh yea, if your not using this you really should be! It’s just that awesome!

Twitter, FaceBook and Linkedin are are updated via a 3rd party solution called Ping.fm to which I send a text msg or IM to, this is used for those short bursts of information rather than long blog stuff.

Delicious, YouTube are directly accessed by me.

Loopt is a new toy that allows my friends to see where I am at and me to see where they are at, it’s tied to my iPhone. I am sure they have a service for other mobile phones as well.

Confused yet? Good!

So here is how it works…

I make a post on my blog.. let’s say, THIS POST.. I then send an IM or SMS to Ping.com, something like “hey check out my new post at www.lostinmadison.com” who will make a short post to Twitter, FaceBook and Linkedin. Simple right.

The goal here is to drive you BACK to my main blog, remember I just want to keep one location up to date.

As for the Picasa, Delicious, Pandora and YouTube? After I have made my updates to those specific locations, they automatically appear in my blog. Delicious links are on the right, along with Pandora. The Picasa web album link is under the About Me section (along with all the Social Networks) and YouTube videos or specific photo albums will show up in blog posts as I want them to appear.

I also have my iPhone with me 24/7 and have all of these apps on it as well. In a pinch I can do any of the above things right from my phone if I really wanted to.

So now I am curious, how do you handle your Social Networks?

In about an hour I am heading off to watch an AC/DC cover band at a local sports bar here in Madison (well it’s in Middleton technically). Anyhow I will try and snap some pics and get em up here so you all can see what it was like. Well I am out for now, gotta go get ready and work on my Gene Simmons tongue thing!
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OK I am back, it was a really cool band, they sounded great! Lot’s of cool people, lot’s of beer, lot’s of good lookin ladies.. Ya it was fun. Now for those of you wondering, no I did’t hook up with anyone, after all it was a bar!

I am getting quite a few names regarding yesterdays post. COOL! Keep em coming! For now I am not going to be showing the comments with those names in them, just adds a little security on my side to ensure that the names remain available until I select one.

Thanks for the help all!

I got a new comfy bed and it’s HUGE! Takes up damn near my whole room. I had to take this pic from inside my walk in closet.. While in there I realized how much stuff I have. 15 pairs of shoes one side for only pants. One for only shirts… If I ever decide to get a girlfriend I wonder where the heck she will fit! Ohh well…

This last weekend my 7yr old nephew was showing me his latest creation on GarageBand and asked if I wanted to give it a try.  I thought sure what the heck!  We had a blast messin around with that software so I decided to find a Windows like product that will do the same thing.  It didn’t take long to find Mixcraft 4 so I downloaded the trial and started to mess around with it.  Both programs GarageBand and Mixcraft 4 are a bunch of fun to play with.  It’s amazing the stuff you can do in a short amount of time.  Here is what I created with both programs in less than about 45min total!

From GarageBand:
[audio:http://www.lostinmadison.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/01-simple.mp3]

From Mixcraft 4
[audio:http://www.lostinmadison.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/02-boredom.mp3]

It may just sound like noise but hey it was fun noise! I will have to see what I can do with more time and actually being serious about creating something…