Blogs & RSS – Bill Glick .:. tech . art . God . life http://blog.billglick.com thoughts on technology, arts, God, and life Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:28:47 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.3.2 What’s the Buzz? /2010/02/11/whats-the-buzz/ /2010/02/11/whats-the-buzz/#respond Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:28:47 +0000 /?p=213 Have you tried the new Google Buzz tool built into Gmail?  It’s like twitter.

This blog post is a test to see if Buzz will automagically pull in this post from my blog.

What are your thoughts on Google Buzz?

]]> /2010/02/11/whats-the-buzz/feed/ 0 Rethinking Parent Alert System /2008/05/04/rethinking-parent-alert-system/ /2008/05/04/rethinking-parent-alert-system/#comments Sun, 04 May 2008 18:55:47 +0000 /?p=50 Continue reading Rethinking Parent Alert System]]> I broke the Visual-Pager keypad at church yesterday. This device allows workers in our nursery to notify our tech booth operators that they need to display a number on our video projection system. Each parent and child are assigned a number and parents know they are being paged back to the nursery if their number appears on screen.

Being the frugal geek that I am, I’m trying to rethink if there is a free way to replace this system instead of spending another $250 on a new keypad. I’m thinking there should be some way to setup some service so that our nursery workers could call a special phone number and type in the number. Then this number is communicated to the tech booth operators via SMS, IM, or Twitter.

The closest I’ve come up with so far is to setup a special Jott account and link that in with a Twitter account. The nursery worker calls Jott, says they want to contact Twitter, and then speaks the number and name of the parent. This would require the tech booth to be running a Twitter client to see the alerts. Here’s a sample of what I’ve got it doing so far:


I’m thinking there should still be an even easier way to do this, hopefully involving fewer internet services. This solution wouldn’t work if our phone service, internet service, Jott, or Twitter experienced any outages. And, it’s not totally straight forward for our volunteers to use.

Anyone have a simpler idea?

]]> /2008/05/04/rethinking-parent-alert-system/feed/ 4 Sharing Things I Like /2008/01/17/sharing-things-i-like/ /2008/01/17/sharing-things-i-like/#respond Thu, 17 Jan 2008 12:22:57 +0000 /2008/01/17/sharing-things-i-like/ Continue reading Sharing Things I Like]]> I read almost all of my news and blog content via Google Reader.  And now with a newer feature in Google Reader, I’ve started sharing news that I think others might like.  So, rather than pasting content from other blogs or news sites, I simply add them to my shared news feed.

If you share any similar interests with me, you might find that subscribing to my shared news feed is useful:

Let me know if you find this useful.

]]> /2008/01/17/sharing-things-i-like/feed/ 0 RSS In Plain English /2007/12/28/rss-in-plain-english/ /2007/12/28/rss-in-plain-english/#comments Fri, 28 Dec 2007 12:32:22 +0000 /2007/12/28/rss-in-plain-english/ Continue reading RSS In Plain English]]> I know many people are still mystified by why web sites are offering RSS feeds. Many of my friends still seem to think RSS feeds are only for geeks (like me). Not true! Here’s a short video in plain English that explains the power of RSS feeds.

Are you using an RSS Feed Reader? If so, what do you use?

]]> /2007/12/28/rss-in-plain-english/feed/ 1 Yahoo Pipes /2007/12/19/yahoo-pipes/ /2007/12/19/yahoo-pipes/#respond Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:19:26 +0000 /2007/12/19/yahoo-pipes/ Continue reading Yahoo Pipes]]> OK, I mentioned Yahoo Pipes back a few months ago, but never had really created anything with it till yesterday. I was trying to figure out how to sort, combine, and limit the number of items in some existing RSS feeds I manage. Enter Yahoo Pipes.

Pipes lets you do some powerful things with RSS feeds and other web content.

Check out my first three pipes:

This seems very powerful. I want to see about creating some other custom feeds from various sources.

]]> /2007/12/19/yahoo-pipes/feed/ 0 Blogger Web Stats Reporting /2007/11/01/blogger-web-stats-reporting/ /2007/11/01/blogger-web-stats-reporting/#comments Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:23:00 +0000 /?p=14 So… Google owns Blogger, right? That’s the same Google that also operates Google Analytics, the awesomely incredible web statistics reporting tool.

So, why can’t Blogger tell me any web statistics about who, if anyone, reads my blog? Hmmmm…

]]> /2007/11/01/blogger-web-stats-reporting/feed/ 1 Blogs I Read /2007/10/31/blogs-i-read/ /2007/10/31/blogs-i-read/#respond Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:17:00 +0000 /?p=13 Continue reading Blogs I Read]]> In response to Dave’s blog entry, I decided to detail some of the top blogs and RSS feeds that I read each day.

God Related:

Leadership:

Geek Stuff:

Several Friends & Family

with news about children, health battles, and life in general

General News:

Do you have any blogs or RSS feeds that you recommend?

]]> /2007/10/31/blogs-i-read/feed/ 0 Addicted to Google Reader /2007/06/25/addicted-to-google-reader/ /2007/06/25/addicted-to-google-reader/#comments Mon, 25 Jun 2007 11:40:00 +0000 /?p=10 Continue reading Addicted to Google Reader]]> I started using Google Reader about 1 month ago to be a central spot for everything I read online. As a firm believer in RSS feeds for a couple of years, I’d explored Google Reader back when it first was introduced, but didn’t really find it all the useful or powerful.

But now that’s different. Google Reader has matured into a powerful RSS reader, while RSS and XML feeds have become much more prolific. After a bit more exploring this weekend, I’m finding that I don’t need to leave Google Reader to catch up on any of my online reading.

A Few RSS Reader Tips
So, besides subscribing to the normal blog and news feeds that most people are aware of, here are some additional things I’m doing with RSS feeds in Google Reader.

YouTube Videos – http://www.youtube.com/rssls

CraigsList

Weather – http://www.rssweather.com/

Bible Reading

Google News

Yahoo Pipes – http://pipes.yahoo.com/
I’m not using Pipes yet, but the idea of easily programming applications and feeds via this interface intrigues me. I want to keep my eye on this tool.

Anyone else have any RSS feed tips that help them with managing your daily flow of information?

]]> /2007/06/25/addicted-to-google-reader/feed/ 1 Worship Podcasts /2007/06/07/worship-podcasts/ /2007/06/07/worship-podcasts/#respond Thu, 07 Jun 2007 15:22:00 +0000 /?p=5 Here are some podcasts that have been grabbing my attention recently.

Worship Sets:

LifeChurch.tv South OKC:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=216314816
LifeChurch.tv Tulsa:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=256184053
Mars Hill Music:
http://rss.marshillchurch.org/mhcmusic

Video Podcasts:

LifeChurch.tv:
http://www.lifechurch.tv/rss/messagecast-itunes.xml
Don’t Waste Your Life:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/DWYL
Mosaic:
http://mosaic.org/podcast/videofeed/
Mars Hill:
http://rss.marshillchurch.org/mhcsermonvideo

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