n-judah love song

co-working experiment

I've been working from home for about two years now (!) and honestly, I love it. I have a fabulous collection of neighbors, a Dunkin Donuts, wireless at the local library. The only thing that's ever seemed challenging is the lack of having other people around to bounce ideas off of. I'm a social gal in social media, after all!

Co-working has evolved in response to the idea that there's more and more of us out there who are working from home for myriad reasons. There's big and small cities where employees are passionate about our jobs, but we can't always be in an office. I think of co-working as a shared art studio space, or a recording studio - I don't need all of those tools/spaces all the time, but it's an amazing resource for when I need it: and a jolt of inspiration.

This week I went to a co-working event called Jelly (find one near you!), invited by my friend Brian. The Boston event was at a place called Betahouse. (frat-guy pun totally intended.) However, It's over in Cambridge, and I have an other-side-of-the-river aversion that's been costal-elite-ly-cultivated.  Once I figured out that there's a cross-town bus that goes straight to Betahouse, I was in.

And surprise! I loved it. Fast wifi, an espresso machine, a quiet space, plenty of good tunes, cheap lunch nearby - what's to argue? I really encourage anyone, although it can be hard to pull yourself out of routine, to try it out. If you work at an office, try it anyway! It's one of the best ways I've found to jostle productivity/creativity - just by changing up the regular scene. 

(cross posted at Vox)

tricking out typepad

Laura wrote this excellent post about how to get a favicon in the address bar of your browser with TypePad. And then my favorite TypePad design blog, swissmiss, posted a link to the favicon generator today.

Just find an image - for me, I just used the Tummy Touch logo, and presto, now you should see the favicon if you clear your cache and reload see it in your browser window.

And welllllll, I borrowed the logo, so maybe you should go buy something from them, like the fabulously sexy I Am Fearless Funky & Five compliation, which I love more than is really appropriate. As evidenced by the fact that I am using their logo as a favicon. (But look how cute! It's my favorite logo evar. Why don't they have t-shirts?)

Thanks to Laura, Tina and Time "Love" Lee.

we've got issues.

Yeah, so. TypePad had some issues this month. Mena and Ben explain it best over here.

I hate when bad things happen to good servers, but I do love being able to use the flexibilty of blogging to communicate to the users who are feeling our pain. My favorites so far have been Diva Marketing (how apropos, after the Diva post), and the user who said "system adminstrators everywhere are feeling your pain" or something to that effect.

It makes me think back to my PR case studies class (I was a comm major, go figure) and wonder what future classes will use as examples of damage control, or how my digital communication class must have changed since then. Whose blog will they use as an example of damage control, held up like the speedy reaction of PR gurus in the Tylenol case, or the Pizza Hut case?

posting from del.icio.us to TypePad.

If you haven't set up a de.icio.us account yet, do so - it's really helpful for organizing bookmarks and being able to access them across computers. Plus, I have a habit of sending yall links all the time anyway that I never get a chance to read, so this is a good way for me to keep them until I do get the chance.

(Updated to add - now you can just post feeds in the sidebar in TypePad, whiz-bang. Thanks Anil! this description is for only if you want to put these in your posts.)

I knew that there was a way to post from del.icio.us to TypePad, and it took me for.ev.er to figure out, with some help from the fabulous ladies of TypePad support, so I thought I'd tell yall how I did it.

Go to http://del.icio.us/settings/$USERNAME/daily

But replace $USERNAME with your actual del.icio.us username.  So for mine, I'd go to

http://del.icio.us/settings/miz_ginevra/daily

and click "add a new thingy". I love that.

In the text fields, do this:

job_name = links from...
out_name = My TypePad username
out_pass = my TypePad password
out_url = http://www.typepad.com/t/api
out_time = 8
out_blog_id = 43265 (this is the number you see when updating your TypePad blog)
out_cat_id = (left blank)

I think this calls once a day, and then posts over here like so with my links I've bookmarked in the past 24 hours.

• FOUND Magazine
  a magazine of, well, found things.
  (tags: art idea magazine found)

whoo!

interestingness

Flickr Explore sure is nifty.

what a wacky scientific party

While some scientists are shooting lasers at cancer cells, ecstacy is shown to reduce parksinson's in mice.

Tomorrow in science news, it will be revealed that house music is the cure for baldness.

Calling all geeks.

So, new place, old computer. Previously, my PC was hooked up to the internets with DSL and was running Windows 2000. Now I have wireless, and the darn thing won’ work. Anil kindly donated me a wireless USB key, and I got upgraded to Windows XP, and the wireless connection shows in the status window as though all systems are go. Except no web applications will work.

What’s the deal? IP address? DNS errors? Gremlins? More about how my presence zaps electronics?

no more twee electronics.

Let's talk about my trivialities again to get us back to normal, shall we?

Yesterday, I got my fourth (fourth!) iPod replacement, as I'm still under warranty. For some reason, I went out and bought a 3G iPod about a week before the 4G ones came out. I got my $100 back, but I still run into all sorts of old-school problems. Namely, that the batteries on these fuckers Do. Not. WORK. And they always choose to conk out at the time when I need them to work, like on a long walk or at the gym.

My mom used to tell me she killed a certain type of watch every time she wore one. It would work and then slowly wind down. Something about an electromagnetic field or some other hippie hocus-pocus. But it's true, she does. I'm thinking maybe my frequency or maybe MUNI's perhaps is to blame.

Regardless, I picked up another iPod from the Geniuses (Genii?), and I did get the remote replaced, and I have 90 more days now on this one, so START COUNTING. If it needs to be replaced too, maybe I'll just start making a little lithium battery graveyard. Or white plastic bracelets from the housing.

I also lost my cell phone someplace while walking in the Mission on July 4th. And no, I wasn't drunk, thank you.

However, this has made me realize two things:

1. my electronics hate me. Yes, they can hate, they have souls - ones that are black and dead inside.
2. if ever there was a shiny, pretty mp3/phone on the market that worked for shit, I would simply lose it, or it would hari-kari hara-kiri itself in a fit of pique.

 

Tivo...is kind of the shit.

As if any of you still needed to know that. But as for me, I had not marveled at recorded television since my aunt used to record "Days of Our Lives" on VCR. I have finally joined the 21^st century. I have Tivo. (insert funny tympani error noise here.) 

I've never been much of a TV girl. I tend to watch two ends of a snob's spectrum that starts with "educational" and ends with "absurdist humor".  PBS, the Daily Show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Sifl and Olly, MST3K, and the occasional stupefying indulgence of a Sex and the City marathon or Metal Day on Vh1.  I couldn't tell you a thing about when what regular, popular shows are on. I have never watched American Idol or America's Next Top Anorexic or any of that hoo-ha. Point is?  I just don't watch TV that much, and Tivo hasn't really changed that. And I would blather on about “this is the way you’re supposed to watch TV” and “advertisements are soooo yesterday” but instead I will just say this.

Jon Stewart, my dear, how I’ve missed you!

love potion number 9

When I read this article about how new love affects your brain, my good friend Todd and I immediately threw all our cynicism at the topic and discussed exactly how the pharmaceutical companies would take advantage of this new research. Of course they'll create a new drug that will mimic the experience of falling in love, and then we've got one more piece of manufactured magic in pill form. One that undoubtedly will cost squillions.

names and slogans?

Mbrace - for when you're just not quite feelin it
Affectua - act like you are nuts while standing perfectly still
Cupidex - get that first three months to last forever!
Bondor - after all, she's still cooking you dinner

Do you think they'll sell it in a twin-pak with some ED drugs?