| It's been a good run... |
[Nov. 28th, 2007|11:06 pm] |
Through this journal I was privileged to 'meet' lots of people: smart, funny, great people. Whether we were sharing deepest thoughts or the lightest chatter, or minutiae of daily life - it was fun.
... It is also true I haven't logged-in here nor read entries for some time. I think it's time to wrap this up.
All things have their time. Now I feel it time to say “Goodbye and thanks for all the fish”.
Be well. |
|
|
| Computer Desk |
[Aug. 21st, 2006|12:29 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  cheerful | ] |
Fiiinally the new computer desk I ordered arrived. :) Catalogue pic of the one I ordered is below.
Now all I have to do is disconnect the computer hardware, unscrew & disassemble the old desk, assemble the new one, and then finish setting it all up.
Computer Desk w/filing pic
|
 |
I aim to start the task, and then be finished “real soon now”.
|
|
|
| Old African Proverb: He who moves last, stays still longest. |
[Jul. 21st, 2006|02:34 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | I wish I was a punk rocker (w/flowers in my hair) - Sandi T | ] |
The house has become a lot busier since my last entry. My brother and his family, including my neice and the two new additions, are staying with us for a while. This has meant, well, more noise. Or more life, to look at it a different way. In lots of ways it's nice to have people around the house.
I've been finding people's different communication styles and mechanisms for dealing with stress or conflict really interesting to see. My brother and his family each have different approaches. Me? I've been trying to take more of a "zen-like" approach to everything of late, to not 'sweat the small stuff'. Lot to be said for it I think. The ways we approach things underlie so much, be it with family, flatmates, or significant others.
Before posting I surfed over to the Latest Posts feed on the LiveJournal front page; from time to time I glance to see if anything piques my interest. From there and elsewhere I've bookmarked a few journals that at the time seemed, one way or another, interesting/well-written/striking/amusing etc.
In the spirit of sharing ... cue a random hotch-potch collection of links:
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) aimercat, chicky824, democritus, kitkatlj, mabfan, museumfreak (hah, particularly her recent entry saying "I think I've forgotten what one normally posts in a weblog." *), ovenfriendly, ntang, purequicksilver, sixfiftytwo.
P.S. Thanks for the nudge. ;-)
* I've always said you can't go wrong with making a series of unconnected remarks about ducks.
|
|
|
| Square pegs and round holes |
[Apr. 19th, 2006|02:37 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  tired | ] |
For the first time in what seemed like forever, I went to the park the other day. Despite light rain it was great. Being close to nature, trees; it's something I should do more often. I found I missed it. As well as cyclists and dog walkers I saw lots of joggers. It's a big park; you can be a fair distance from traffic. It didn't occur to me before I went but you know what? Starting to jog there would be awesome toning exercise, given the variety of hard and softer grass surfaces. It's free. There a greater chance I'd actually do it too. Unlike other best laid plans. *cough Pilates DVD cough*
My bedroom also saw some progress at the weekend. No not that sort! :P Floor-ceiling fitted wardrobe/cupboards, which I never used, took up stacks of space. With their removal the room seems so much bigger. ...I need to re-decorate. What made it happen were expertise and power tools supplied by my dad. Devising the order in which to remove sections was second nature to him. I got to thinking how we all have different skillsets. Pigeonholing ourselves into other roles, or temporarily learning new skills we're less suited might not be The Best Thing. Granted, there may be financial reasons not to always hire an 'expert'. And, I accept that spending time and money bringing ourselves to the point we can do xyz can be an investment. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Apr. 19th, 2006|02:19 am] |
Ads are now live on LiveJournal.com. Contrary to my previous entry, free accounts will see ads onsite (and anybody else if they're logged out). Users who do not opt-in will be served targetted ads.
To put that into perspective: in the region of 12% of accounts[1] are paid. That means nearly ninety percent of LiveJournal.com users will see Google ads onsite. Ads will be displayed whenever they click an lj user icon that happens to point to an ad-supported account. The other key change that differed from the announcements (at least how I understood them) is that virtually all paid LiveJournal features come with the ad-supported free accounts. Some interesting responses were made to my comment on the ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/newsinfo.gif?v=92.2) news entry.
[1] |
|
|
| It takes all sorts to make a world... |
[Apr. 17th, 2006|08:18 pm] |
Yesterday I listened to the public phone posts stream - 'LiveJournal Radio'. Here's some of what I listened to. I did not know any of these users. I'm comfortable with that.
moonandserpent Kevin's by the pool in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. He has to head back to Indiana don'tcha know. I hear ya on what Floridian bus station loiterers are like. I stopped listening after two mins, but this voicepost was okay.
Dare I say it, the phrase 'so highschool' sprang to mind. That's a little harsh though.
kookypoodle I love you too.
Easy listening.
The weather. Somewhere.
BurgerKing. Haircut. Don't sell yourself short, sugarpie. You're a more interesting listen than most.
newmoondrksky Something about masturbation, lesbians and anal sex? What the HELL class is this lady taking????
always_a_liar A guy reads two short poems. Interesting.
girly_pimp They say both European & N. American schools are seeing rising levels of discipline problems. Nature or nurture? It's hard to say. One thing's for sure, if all teachers were like this disciplinary problems would decrease. Sharply!
lelu_mayene Yeah, Vicki and me we're tight. I worry she works too much though. P.S. I'm not sure about that loud thud audible at the end. Hope it wasn't a cartoon anvil.
lucca1 This, is Niki. Is she drunk? Who can tell. Is she talking non-stop without pausing for breath for ages? Yes. We like Niki; she's chirpy, chatty and charming. We like using 'the royal we' too apparently. But that's another story. P.S. Voice posts can be up to five minutes long (source: LiveJournal FAQs). Niki clearly likes to get her money's worth. Moreover, she's found a workaround - her post clocks in at almost ten minutes. Around the seven minute mark, we find she's not drunk, but drinking cocoa. She's just being classic Niki. You'll have to listen to the end to find out the twist! :o)
bostonben A better singer than most, she opts for a folk music sound.
korczyk - *smirk*. This guy raps/sings the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme tune. Haven't we all at some point? No? Oh okay then.
notjustazero Homeless.
You'd never know s/he was from Louisana. I don't know what points the poster was trying to make. But she's certainly forthspoken!
miscellanny Perfectly put, perfectly put.
Aside from those who make phone posts when they've nothing to say, a fact they share, phone post usage surprised me. The feature seems to appeal to a certain demographic. Almost exclusively, voice posters were beyond their teens. I imagine there could be several reasons for this. Users tend to make phone posts for a bunch of reasons. Karaoke and other artforms such as poetry are common. Oral travel diaries, inevitably, are another recurring theme. In the fairly small sample I heard, employing voice posts as a teaching aid also proved popular. And Niki? She was in a class of her own. |
|
|
| The What, the Why and the Where |
[Apr. 17th, 2006|08:13 pm] |
Very soon LiveJournal.com will carry ads. The motivation behind it is simple. Ads promise money to site owners; money talks.
What will the ads on LiveJournal.com look like?It's hard to show this easily. But this very basic demo gives an idea: http://services.google.com/demo/adsense/start. Clicking through reveals a box where you must enter your URL to start the demo, and Greg, a Google AdSense engineeer literally walks you through a brief demo about how AdSense works. The demo will actually underlay your index page underneath Greg doing his demo. Try it with http://www.livejournal.com/. It portrays ads discreetly blending into the site, but is interesting.
Official Google Adsense information shows the top performing ad unit sizes are: 300x250 medium rectangle (four ads) and 160x600 wide skyscraper (five ads). Sample LiveJournal ads match those sizes; 'leaderboard' and 'rectangle' will be implemented too.
TargettingCan advertisers contextually target LiveJournal.com members? Can they sign up and make an ad, and have it shown to males ages 18-24 in a certain set of zip codes that have one of a number of bands mentioned in their profile? Along similar lines, could club promoters target all 18+ girls that are single in a city? Perhaps military/collegiate recruiters targetting senior yr. high-schoolers?
Yes and no. Drilling down to zip code level seems out, but country is one of the fields passed to the ad-engine/YieldManager to return corresponding adverts. I don't know if school/college data is passed, but it probably isn't. Other variables passed to the targetting engine are age and country (if user shares this information), gender, language, notable interests, and query strings - e.g. for interest searches. I don't know how 'notable' is defined. I'd guess it excludes generic popular interests like 'music'?
Amusingly, Six Apart staff created a blacklist of interests that Google can't target against. It includes 'porn', 'boys' and 'vodka'. In any event, it's a safe bet we're talking about the "Google AdSense Premium Service". Google Adsense Premium classifies the ads; family-safe ads are the default for publishers' sites such as AOL and, presumably, LiveJournal.com. Google Adsense marketing spiel says their AdSense algorithm "includes such factors as keyword analysis, word frequency [and] font size".
Ad-TypesThe ad-supported user selects categories of ads he'd like to see. A few default categories exist: 'date', 'etoys', 'music', and 'shop'.
EconomicsThe world of blogging has changed a lot in the last couple of years. There are more big players: Pyra Labs, now part of Google, own Blogger, relative newcomer Microsoft introduced MSN Spaces, and Yahoo launched Yahoo!360°. It's not known if Six Apart, funded by the same venture capital firm as Technorati, considers these the LiveJournal.com 'competitors'; there's little interaction/information shared in such channels as ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif?v=92.2) lj_biz sadly.
Forthcoming ad-supported accounts have been presented as something for users to opt into, in exchange for access to paid-user features they wouldn't otherwise be able to access. This is in addition to the former free and paid levels. Six Apart, arguably, decided to drop LiveJournal's paid accounts business model in favour of making LiveJournal.com an ad-supported site. Six Apart's motivation behind introducing adverts, according to statements, comes down to maintaining competitive advantage. Did changes to the blogging/journal landscape(s), such as Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. purchase of MySpace for $580m, justify it? LiveJournal members might be said to have predicted this commercial step a year ago, when LiveJournal's sale to Six Apart was announced. Much discussion centred around how Six Apart would aim to 'monetize their acquisition'. Some at that time even held changes made to the Social Contract, illustrated how LiveJournal would change under its new owners.
Where will ads display?More or less everywhere. The full listing is in the codebase. In short, opted-in users will see the ads on all current primary sitepages, comments/entries, profiles etc.
Why might advertisers target LiveJournal.com members?Latest research on the blogging industry from comScore found that 50 million U.S. Web users visited blogs in the first quarter of this year. Compared with the average Internet user, blog readers are significantly more likely to live in wealthier households, connect to the Web on high-speed connections, and are more likely to shop online, according to comScore.
'Blogs' aren't only used by individuals, of course. Companies currently using Six Apart software & services include Amazon, General Motors, Wal-Mart, and Yahoo, and recent additions to their product portfolio include TypePad Business Class and Comet.
Allegedly, 'bloggers'/'journallers' are a lucrative market. So there you are. You're all that plus tax. However, the Internet has long been fertile ground for breeding conspiracy theories. LiveJournal is no exception. Rumours that ads are coming merely to fund a diamond-studded plaque / statue of Six Apart's resident hottie, may prove hard to dismiss. |
|
|
| There's nothing quite like a break |
[Mar. 18th, 2006|11:49 pm] |
At the end of what was a gruelling week it's time to come back to this journal! The last week or two have seen me dealing with something at college - big stuff concerning my future there. It's probably better if I don't go into details online; it's not particularly exciting anyhow. I may well need to find myself a lawyer though...
Since dealing with the above called for my undivided attention, I decided to temporarily delete my account to remove a potential distraction: LiveJournal.com. So if anybody noticed/wondered... that's what I've been up to this week (well, inevitably, a few folks de-friended the account, so some people noticed :)).
I'll sign off on that brief note here. I've decided to try and have a restful week-end and not think about anything academic. Looking forward to catching up with your adventures!
Much ♥,
Me.
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Feb. 27th, 2006|08:33 pm] |
 Work has kept me busy; multiple assignments are all I've seemed to do lately! I do need to manage my time better too -- same old same old. One thing I tried recently, to help relax me and my back, was a treatment at a chinese medical centre. I had a combined acupuncture, thermal cupping and pressure massage; my first experience of them.
After going through a form, the doctor checked my tongue, remarking on my tongue piercing, and I laid down on the treatment table. ( Read more... ) |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
curious
4 (66.7%)
