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Richard X. Thripp at 2008-10-07T03:01:04.
http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/win-a-dslr-in-our-new-photography-competition/
Awesome! I got my entry in: The Rebel. There are lots of intriguing portraits there, and community voting is a nice touch.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-10-07T01:51:40.http://www.levnow.com/blog/2008/10/05/grab-your-camera-daily-vigilance-with-tabs/
This is a great tip; I’m doing this every day now. I used to convince myself that there was nothing interesting in Florida and I’d have to go to the jungles of Africa to really get some cool photos, but that’s totally false. It’s also a limiting belief.
Wherever you live, there’s great things to take pictures of. Go out and take pictures of interesting people, plants, and buildings. Or take pictures of dull people in an interesting way. Photography is limitless, because you don’t have to deal with the drudgery of sketching or painting the scene. The scene is right there. You just have to interpret it.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-10-07T01:47:05.http://blog.razvandobre.com/2008/09/time-pressure-is-it-bad-or-good-for-you_24.html
Time pressure is good if you’re not going to get the job done on your own, but that means you’re not committed to it to begin with. That can include school and work projects, though you shouldn’t be attending school or work if you don’t enjoy it.
There should be no reason to place time constraints on your writing of personal development articles, because you don’t need any pressure. You love what you do and it will take as long as it needs and no longer. If you cut that short, your cutting yourself short. That is transcending time limits.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-10-07T01:43:25.http://www.positivityblog.com/index.php/2008/05/13/why-you-should-seek-out-new-relationships/
On embarrassment, I go further than saying that it’s a necessary risk. It’s all in your head. If you’re embarrassed by someone, it’s not them; it’s because you’ve let them embarrass you. No one else can hurt you with words or thoughts or feelings or statements if you choose to not feel hurt.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-10-06T20:10:27.http://too.blogspot.com/2008/09/lrrk2.html
My Great Aunt contracted Parkinson’s disease in her fifties; she passed on a couple years ago in her seventies. After twenty years, it got progressively worse to the point that she couldn’t move.
I remember my Grandma often having to call her back over the phone, because she’d inadvertently hit the “talk” button from the shaking.
I think Parkinson’s disease has a connection to arthritis and cancer, because all three involve the body turning against itself; destruction from the inside out rather than from external causes. I found out this year that cancer is a vitamin deficiency; you should eat apple seeds and similar seeds every day, so your body can use vitamin B17 to kill the rogue cells that want to form cancerous growths. I blogged about it here: The Cancer Myth. Cancer is a big problem, so it’s nice to know I’ll never suffer from it, despite all my friends and family that have died in vain…
Might Parkinson’s disease be a vitamin deficiency too, and all this stuff about genes just be a coincidence? There could be a vitamin we don’t get, because we eat all processed foods rather than natural foods. Our modern treatments don’t cure the disease; they just patch the symptoms, buying you some time.
If there is a natural cure, it’s probably something you have to get in your diet every day, just like how you eat iodine every day (in salt) to avoid goiters. It’s likely that you can’t “cure” Parkinson’s disease, just like you can’t “cure” thirst.
Finding that natural cure and prevention is harder, because it requires long-scale testing to be effective. But it should be easy to get started. Research dogs and cats in captivity (i.e. apartments) vs. in the wild; it could be that the ones in the wild don’t get the disease but the ones in captivity do, just like only domesticated dogs get cancer (because they can’t eat grass and weeds which have B17 in them).
The next step is to research people who live close to the Earth and eat straight from nature; perhaps in the jungles of Africa. Do they get Parkinson’s disease? If they don’t, find out what it is they’re eating that prevents it.
Good luck Mr. Sergey, and let me know if you get to the bottom of this.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-10-06T19:27:34.http://www.copyblogger.com/ginger-or-mary-ann/
I think this is all about broadcasting versus conversing; broadcasters are independent, don’t work with others, and make proclamations, while conversationalists are focused on comments, feedback, and networking.
Broadcasters make quantum leaps while conversationalists build incremental momentum.
Mary Ann was a conversationalist while Ginger was a broadcaster.
I prefer broadcasting… it’s more exciting.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-10-05T20:43:12.http://kikolani.com/pretty-girl.html
This is pretty deep; beautiful women are often in fact cursed, because most men won’t treat them like normal people. This effects women more because men generally look for good-looking women while women look for men with charisma, personality, and independence, putting looks second. So men have the advantage because it’s easier to improve personality than looks.
To the beautiful women out there: don’t lose hope, because there are exceptions to every generalization.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-10-03T20:36:52.http://performancing.com/future-all-software-bloatware
In The Mythical Man-Month, Fred Brooks describes this as the second-system effect. The first version of a software program is simple and basic, just getting one job done. Then the developer(s) keep adding more stuff to make it better. Eventually it becomes slow.
Software becomes slow if more stuff has to be loaded into the memory even if it isn’t used. The trade-off of avoiding features is that if there’s a feature someone needs that isn’t there, the user can’t implement it himself. Broadly speaking, it’s more important to cover everyone at the expense of speed, than to have speed at the expense of functionality.
On the other hand, lots of bloat comes from backward compatibility or just keeping things the same way. That’s why on Windows, we have so many keyboard shortcuts that are redundant or make no sense. It’s also why Windows Vista is like 13GB.
Firefox was supposed to be the lean, fast replacement for the Mozilla suite. Now it’s becoming the same bloated project all over again. I think all of Firefox’s features can be implemented with less memory usage, fewer bugs and crashes, and more speed. But they have plugins to keep compatible with…
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-10-03T20:18:18.http://williamsmind.com/blog/?p=62
The “never stop complimenting others; especially children” part puzzles me. Won’t that create emotional dependence in them?
You’re a very analytical person and you believe in an objective reality. You want to believe “subjective opinions” aren’t important, but in fact, life is just one subjective opinion. Everything you do is based on opinions. Opinions are great.
What I like to do is to compliment everyone, but if someone’s doing something especially great, I’ll go way overboard with the compliments. It’s not meant to please others; it’s meant to please myself, because it’s feels a lot better to believe everyone else is wonderful rather than believing everyone else is unworthy.
Compliments aren’t about you; they’re about what a happy person the complimenter is. You don’t have to become numb to both praise and criticism; just detach your ego from criticism. That doesn’t mean you ignore it or do nothing. It means that you realize the criticism is of your work, not your ego or you.
The next step is to recognize where the criticism is coming from. A lot of criticism (half of it) comes from insecurity on the part of other people; they may want to do what you’re doing, but they’ve told themselves they can’t (limiting beliefs) so it hurts them to see you succeed. Don’t take those people seriously; instead try to raise them up above their level. Instead of reacting defensively or nonchalantly, discuss why they dislike your work. Most people will find this really surprising, because they’ve never had such a discussion before.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-10-03T20:01:05.http://williamsmind.com/blog/?p=79
I loved the example of writing with your left hand, because that’s something most people will say you just can’t do. They’ll say that only talented “ambidextrous” persons can write with both hands, while it’s impossible for them.
That’s why “talent,” while innately good, is often put to bad use. People use the talent excuse to justify their lack of effort and progress: “I’m not succeeding because I don’t have talent.”
The real answer is that you’re not succeeding because you’re not trying. What can stand in your way if you work on your talent every day?
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-10-03T18:38:55.http://www.three8six.com/geek/geekforum/tabid/396/forumid/43/postid/66/scope/posts/Default.aspx
Nice to meet you, Alex.
I have a 16GB flash drive, so I guess I can call myself a geek.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-10-03T18:07:42.http://www.portofinodaytona.com Portofino in Daytona Beach Shores has some great pizza and Italian food. Say hello to George for me.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-29T17:59:52.http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/general-introductions/20150-personal-development-core-truth.html
I think you believe in necessary evil. Work you don’t enjoy is a necessary evil to get to what you want.
This is a limiting believe though, and it will keep you in unenjoyable work if you stick with it. Evil is never necessary. If something is evil, it’s not necessary, and if it’s truly necessary, it can’t possibly be evil.
Change that believe to “you must confront your fears.” Because confronting your fears is something you want (and need) to do, even if it feels like you don’t.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-29T17:52:49.http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/steve-pavlina/23161-killing-bugs-blog-2.html
Most people who will let one ant or spider go will not feel such affinity with 300,000 ants. Then, it’s kill kill kill.
Many of us think the same way, subconsciously, about people. It’s wrong to kill or hurt others, but it isn’t so bad to bomb them en masse.
Of course, this is wrong; 300,000 people are just as valuable as one person. And if bugs are sacred like people, it’s as wrong to euthanize a million of them as it is to torture one with a magnifying glass.
What bothers me, is that many of us don’t even show the same love for people as you’re showing for bugs (with things such as perpetual war and abortion). But it may actually be that by respecting bugs we’ll come to respect each other.
Some people will justify killing bugs and animals by saying they kill each other. But that doesn’t matter because we aspire to be better than animals; we want to show compassion where they do not. But if we put animals at human level, then they are us and we’re back to square one. It’s the chicken and the egg problem.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-28T22:46:48.http://aphotoeditor.com/2008/09/05/single-serve-websites-a-cool-trend/
This is a good idea in theory, but I wouldn’t do it for anything unprofitable as what I put on the web I want to stick around forever, with the same URLs. Verisign collects $6.86 per year per domain, and they continue raising it a few percent every year. Registrars charge $9 or $10 per year to make a profit.
I could see keeping something like myproject.thripp.com for 100 years, but myproject.com might not last more than 10.
The other problem is that most content management systems aren’t designed to span multiple domains, so you can’t keep a consistent look between sites. They basically become islands. Also, your search rankings are fragmented.
If you want a collection of islands instead of a cohesive whole, single-purpose domains are fine.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-28T22:41:59.http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/verisign-increases-com-fee-to-686/
Why should domain registration prices go up? There are 22 million .coms, so that’s $151 million per year gross for Verisign. The increase is $9.7 million per year.
Despite inflation, computers and processing power is cheaper than ever. The domain registration fee should decrease as more and more sites are registered, not increase. It’s not costing them anywhere near $151 million per year to keep all the .coms registered.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-28T19:26:14.http://blogs.photopreneur.com/mounting-your-own-photography-art-exhibition
Great advice here. I prefer getting my work out on my own site than Facebook or Flickr, because then it’s branded, it belongs to me, and I can make money from selling ad space.
Love the partnership between the frame maker and the photographer; quite an idea. I’ll have to try one of these exhibitions some time.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-27T16:51:17.Hey, great use of Tweet This! It fits right in with ShareThis and I Love Social Bookmarking.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-26T23:54:43.I agree with Chris; we should get rid of this nonsense. Money should be backed by gold and created by Congress. The government should sell off all the land it “owns” in Utah and other south-western states to pay off the “national debt,” and then never create a national debt again.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-24T21:50:59.http://imod.co.za/2008/09/24/13-damn-useful-wordpress-plugins-you-should-see/
Thanks for featuring Tweet This!
I think Manageable looks interesting; would be even better if you could use it on the front-end (browsing your blog) too. I’ll see if I can implement that.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-23T23:58:32.http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130257742522
TWO 2GB SanDisk Cruzer Micro USB flash drives, black color. Two separate packages. Great as gifts or to resell.
The quantity on this auction is 2 because I have FOUR of these 2GB drives. 2 groups of 2.
Both drives have two-year warranties from SanDisk, are unopened in perfect condition, same as pictured.
These both have U3 software included, Windows 2000, XP, and Vista only. You can still use the drive on Mac and Linux with the software unavailable. The program starts up automatically and gives you access to programs in a Start-like menu from the system tray. You can add programs, and they’ll work on any computer as the settings are saved on the drive. A lot of people find it convenient.
You can remove the software easily, and restore it again if you change your mind. Scroll to the bottom here for info about that:
http://www.sandisk.com/Retail/Default.aspx?CatID=1450
Included U3 programs are Skype (phone chat), McAfee (antivirus), and games.
The drives both have retractable caps. I’ve had one of these for over a year, and the switch still works fine, so it seems sturdy enough.
While not exactly “micro,” this is still fairly small. 2GB flash drives are getting cheaper. You could easily pick up two of these for $50 at any office store, and if you go on Amazon, they’re $12.70 ($7.75 plus $4.95 shipping). That puts the value of this item at $25.40. Happy bidding!
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-22T23:29:15.http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/live-deliberately/
I just wrote a lot about this in Transcending Limiting Beliefs. In a nutshell, it’s comforting to live your life thinking you’re not in control, because it removes personal responsibility from your life. But you can only forfeit authority over your life for so long before seeing the truth: you are in control of everything.
For some people, this takes many years.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-22T19:22:02.http://kikolani.com/new-look-for-kikolani.html
Great job! I like the tag cloud at the bottom-right, the contrast on it especially.
I redesigned my blog last month too. It’s a lot of work, but worth it once it’s done because everything looks much nicer.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-22T19:21:26.http://kikolani.com/the-cottage.html
Very pretty; I like the quilt out front! You could just lay on that and gaze up at the clouds all day. I, on the other hand, would take pictures of them.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-22T19:14:42.http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/how-to-build-credibility-on-the-web.html
I can use these on my blog; they do help you to connect with your audience and build trust. Last week, I rewrote my about page with these goals in mind.
One thing I can add is this: always use your real name. Even on MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Most people are afraid to back put their name and reputation behind everything they write, but you should because it really demonstrates authenticity. It’s also easier to keep track of one name rather than a dozen aliases, and you’ll build brand (name) recognition.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-21T20:27:36.http://www.craigharper.com.au/2008/09/wasting-time-on-bullshit.html
The last one’s really important; I’ve been meeting a lot of people like that lately. They were happy, but now they’re letting their appearance or lack of possessions drag them down. You can’t root yourself in worldly concerns and expect unworldly results.
The title is perfect for this article. Time is limited. That’s actually nice, because it gives us a reason to do the important things first. Don’t put fluff first or you’ll never get to the top of the list.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-21T00:16:48.http://kikolani.com/monsoon-cloud-rolling-in.html
Cool, that’s quite a cloud formation. Great colors and contrast. The sky does such interesting things–I always keep an eye on it.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-21T00:13:50.http://kikolani.com/a-double-rainbow.html
Wow, beautiful capture! I like the mist and reflection, and the whole photo has a warm feel to it.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-20T23:39:16.http://blog.razvandobre.com/2008/09/10-tips-on-how-to-get-over-need-to-be.html
The best way for me is to disconnect my ego from my ideas. It’s hard to do, but then you don’t care at all about being right because it just isn’t important anymore. Other people are surprised when you don’t care about being right, because they’re expecting and hoping for a fight. But fighting only entrenches ideas; it never creates them.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-20T16:28:54.http://thinksimplenow.com/happiness/the-power-of-language/
I like this article. “I can’t” always holds you back, because even if you know it’s not true, you’re reinforcing a limiting belief subconsciously. I can’t think of any time when you’d actually need to use “I can’t.”
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-20T01:42:36.http://www.alexshalman.com/2008/09/04/danger-of-happiness/
Wow! This is exactly what I had in mind when I wrote How to Be Happy. Making happiness the goal is like eating a cake that’s all icing. It makes you sick.
“To operate with the greatest good of all in mind” is a worthy goal, which I aspire to myself. How would it work if you changed it to “to operate with my greatest happiness in mind”? Not very well, I can tell you that. Working for the greatest good will bring you the most happiness, because happiness is always a means, not an end. It can’t be accessed directly. I’m glad you’re opening peoples minds to this.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-20T01:32:53.Awesome! The thing about insane dreams is true, but honestly, 99% of the world is under-dreaming while 1% is over-dreaming. Over-dreaming just isn’t a big consideration. If you think you’re doing it, you’re actually under-dreaming, because if you were over-dreaming you wouldn’t even know it.
Dare to dream big.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-20T01:18:18.http://freelanceswitch.com/freelancing-essentials/websites-for-photographers/
I like to WordPress with the Post Thumb Revisited plugin, because you can easily have both a gallery and blog with PHP-Exec and the proper use of the plugin’s function.
The lines between photo-blogs and portfolios are blurring. I prefer photo-blogs myself, because if you enjoy art photography you should be taking photos often, and you should want to share them in an accessible format supporting conversations (comments). Traditional portfolio websites just don’t do that.
I also agree that you should stop share-cropping on Flickr / Facebook / deviantART / MySpace and get your own site, even if it’s expensive. So much more freedom and potential. You could be banned from MySpace at any minute, but if you create your own network, you are the master of your domain.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-20T01:08:52.http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/color-management-101/
I edit all my photos on a CRT. I just can’t get the colors to be true on my LCD, and that’s true for all but expensive LCDs. Get a dual-head video card and a bulky old CRT, calibrate it by eye or with a CRT colorimeter (cheap on eBay), and you’ll have truer colors than an LCD monitor five times as expensive.
Color spaces, printing, and gamuts are a whole ‘nother issue. You get a feel for which colors won’t print well after a while (saturated yellows, reds, purples, browns).
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-20T01:04:49.http://www.kaihenstudios.com/drupal-6.4/?q=node/8
Never make happiness a goal. It’s materialism to the extreme. Instead, build a permanent foundation for happiness built on action, not state.
That means you have to set really big goals and missions. Start by changing your blog’s goal from being a diary to being a resource. I wrote more about this here: How to Be Happy.
You probably won’t do anything, because at this point in your life you prefer being depressed all the time. You can do that for a few more years / decades if you’d like.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-20T00:57:10.http://www.kaihenstudios.com/drupal-6.4/?q=node/5
Get some new talents. Do you look at other people around you and notice them radiating with talent? Most of them are just like you.
You have the potential for a lot of personal growth, if you channel your introspection into change rather than complacency. Take the disclaimed out of your blog’s footer. You should want people to change after reading this. Saying you don’t helps no one.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-19T01:55:13.http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2007/11/20/stop-thinking-youll-get-by-on-your-high-iq/
I don’t like the tone of this article. You make it sound like children won’t learn how to talk with others unless we “teach” them how. And if we don’t do that, they won’t be able to play with other kids nor collaborate with others. They’ll be set on solitude for good.
The truth is, you can’t “teach” social skills, insofaras the student must connect with others himself. There are no physical maladies so great that they override free will. The kindergartners are free to socialize with the other kindergartners on the playground, and if they do not, they do so by their own choice. Children are the same as adults in that regard. I remember being 5, and I was perfectly capable of talking to other kids, and then sometimes I’d prefer to think quietly than to socialize.
Sure, we can reinforce self-esteem in children by how we describe the world to them. But ultimately, this is a crutch until they build their own legs of self-esteem. You don’t keep walking around on crutches when you have good legs.
I think you have a model of social interaction based on compromise and no surprises. Unfortunately, that assumes everyone knows what they want out of social interactions. The truth is, you may really want someone to come along and show you a problem in a whole different light, even if it contradicts your beliefs / religion / ideals or whatever. You can’t get that with “trained” social behavior.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-19T01:29:58.http://www.onmoneymaking.com/hate-money.html
Hating money for these reasons is like hating cars because people get into accidents and die. You’re totally misplacing the blame.
I was hoping for a positive conclusion: that you don’t have to have a job you hate because if your passion helps others, then you can make lots of money from it (if it doesn’t, it’s not helping others or you haven’t monetized it correctly). Even without working in an office. You don’t have to sacrifice your heart for your wallet. You may not be able to quit your job immediately, but over a period of months or years (shorter the more dedicated you are), you can create ways to become less job-reliant. If you love to play the piano, become a piano teacher.
On the other hand, if you’re depressed after reading this, I wrote The Perks of Having a Job just for you.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-18T23:21:32.http://www.onmoneymaking.com/asshole-envy-and-the-value-of-extreme-focus.html
You don’t have to abandon your family and step on others to be driven or successful. You don’t even have to do those things to be an asshole. There are plenty of other ways to do it.
You’ve missed the mark here. Cheating others isn’t the way to be a successful asshole; the real way is to forget the critics. Critics are always telling you that you can’t do this or that, and they’re the ones who will consider you an asshole when you show extreme focus. Ignore them; don’t let them turn you into a wishy-washy, soulless non-innovator.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-18T22:52:34.http://www.copyblogger.com/how-to-stop-being-invisible/
You have to pick either providing value or getting attention as your primary focus. This article suggests the getting attention.
People who focus on getting attention usually provide value, because you have to (in one shape or form) to get attention. Neither choice is right or wrong, but providing value is better for me because it gives me a clear direction.
Getting attention is a more muddled goal. In one blog post you’re providing value, but in the next you’re just trying to get someone to click an ad or buy something valueless. Obviously, you need both attention and value, but you can use one to derive the other. I know I need to crank up the value if I’m not getting attention.
Writing posts purely for attention is different from advertising your value-centered posts. If your posts are value-centered, you should feel guilty for not advertising them, because you’re depriving unaware people of value.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-18T22:22:43.http://www.copyblogger.com/are-you-a-writer/
“I’m not a writer” is very much a limiting belief, because by believing it, it comes true and you don’t write anything. I’m glad to see you’re applying your creativity and embracing your writing skills.
I’m writing more and more too, but as blogging rather than publishing a book or something more formal. It’s a great way to start because it’s simple and easy, and it can lead to ‘greater’ things later. I wouldn’t mind never publishing a book, because writing free articles reaches a far larger audience.
The aversion to writing stems from a bigger belief, as you’ve noted. That belief is: “I’m not creative.” I’m an artistic photographer, and I’m surprised how easy it is to put my vision into pictures. Other people enjoy them, but they tell me “I wish I had the eye to do that.” You don’t NEED the eye, you already have it. Same with writing.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-17T23:00:31.http://www.articlesbase.com/motivational-articles/selflimiting-beliefs-341822.html
This is a good start, but examples would help. Many people can’t even recognize their own limiting beliefs without examples.
You could use:
“You get what you pay for.” — Not true, because people give gifts, stores have loss leaders, people cheat, etc.
“The Earth is flat.” — This could be really limiting.
“The only way to attract a partner is to be rude and uncaring.” — This fulfills itself, because you act like this and attract people who like this.
“Earning money is painful.” — What if you love your trade? What if you want to earn more money? More money = more pain isn’t a good place to start.
“Good relationships require like minds.” — Replace “require” with “can have,” because this belief assumes a host of other limiting beliefs: conflict is bad, differences sprout conflict, agreement is the only sprout for commonality, conflict always entrenches existing beliefs, etc.
Keep writing, learning, and sharing always.
Richard
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-16T12:22:51.Community is a double-edged sword. You need it when you need it and you don’t need it when you don’t need it. I used to seek out a lot of feedback on my photography, and people would just tell me what I wanted to hear. Sure, I could’ve sought out new people, but the real solution was to start taking my own actions and producing my own art, rather than looking for the approval of others.
I think points 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are better suited to personal rather than communal relationships. A couple close friends are better than the few hundred distant friends the word “community” implies.
I prefer to give up the friend / stranger model entirely. Everyone is my friend. If you’re human, I already know you and you’re my friend.
Really, how could you be so different than I don’t know you? This mindset has helped me meet lots of new people.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-16T10:29:24.http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/why-just-do-it-just-doesnt-do-it-for-you.html
It’s really easy to take a lot of action but not get anything important done. I think a lot of this can be applied to reading too; we’re pushed to read, but not pushed to read actively or thoughtfully. The same applies to actions.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-15T23:58:32.http://freelanceswitch.com/freelance-freedom/freelanceing-freedom-70/
http://www.ping.fm is the only thing that comes close to automating this.
The answer isn’t to update your networks infrequently or use a web service to batch-update. The real solution is to abandon these social networks entirely and create your own social network on your own domain (preferably a blog). If your friends refuse to follow you on anything but Facebook, you don’t need them. Stop sharecropping and get your space, not MySpace.
Once you abandon the social networks, instead of getting friend alerts or notifications every few minutes, you’ll get them every few days (as comments or emails). You’ll see that your website is dependent on you and you alone to build. You can’t rely on friends and social commentary anymore. With a blog, you have to contribute real value. It’s like moving from your parents’ house to your own house. You have more freedom, but more responsibility.
Since moving from ad-hoc blogging on forums and social networks to my own blog on my domain, my writing has improved immeasurably. This is because I have to take complete responsibility for my success, and because the noise of comments / feedback / discussion is largely removed.
Social networking is a pointless waste of time. No matter how cozy the bath, you can’t spend all day in it.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-15T23:43:55.This is so true. Even the Rolling Stones, the biggest rock band of all time, spends a year or two touring after each album release, endlessly promoting their work, because they know that’s the only way to reach the most people and sell the most copies.
Releasing an album, publishing a book, starting a blog. These are all starting points. If you stop there, you’re doomed to failure.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-15T23:38:57.http://www.blogcreativity.com/conditional-tags-dynamic-wordpress-sidebars/
is_home and is_page aren’t “parameters,” they’re functions. They’re declared in the WordPress core, specifically, in wp-includes/query.php.
One useful thing is that you can put an exclamation point before them, for example, “if !is_home()”. That shows some code on every page but the home page.
If you have a lot of elseif statements it’s more efficient to use switch / case / break, but that’s a different approach to learn.
The proper (versatile) way to create dynamic sidebars is with plugins and widgets, but that’s complicated. I code conditional statements right into my theme too because it’s easier.
This is a great introductory guide.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-13T22:46:11.http://www.dailyblogtips.com/backup-your-blog-regularly/
I have a LiveJournal blog which I use the LiveJournal Crossposter plugin on. It automatically copies my posts to LiveJournal, updates them if I edit, and deletes them if I delete them on my blog. It will even has an option to cross-post old entries in the settings.
Posting doesn’t seem any slower, and I have a running backup of my blog posts on LiveJournal.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-13T22:26:09.http://scrapur.com/index/twitter-plugins/50-plus-twitter-plugins-tools-and-applications/
I created a WordPress plugin for Twitter called Tweet This, so I’m always interested in other tools for my favorite site of 140 characters or less. Great compilation.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-13T22:23:39.http://c.hadcoleman.com/2008/07/ryder-jackson-coleman/
Wow, congratulations! I wish many happy years to your family.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-13T22:21:11.http://c.hadcoleman.com/2008/06/twitter-plugins-for-wordpress/
Consider adding Tweet This to the list. It lets you add an icon or link to each of your posts that lets your readers share it on Twitter if they’re logged in. The cool thing is that it shortens URLs in advance (pick Th8.us, is.gd, TinyURL, or others), and includes the title in the tweet text.
I find it useful (I created it and use it on my own blog), and I haven’t seen any other plugin like it.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-13T17:27:18.I just released a new version of my WordPress plugin called Tweet This, which lets your readers share your blog posts on Twitter with ease. It even shortens the URLs in advance, through Th8.us, is.gd, TinyURL, or others (configurable).
http://richardxthripp.thripp.com/tweet-this
This might be good to use / feature on WPCandy. It isn’t well known yet, but it does something no other Twitter plugin does; most of the others are just for cross-posting blog posts or showing your tweets on your blog, but this gives power to your readers.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-13T17:20:07.http://brajeshwar.com/2007/tiny-link-wordpress-plugin/
This is a great idea! I took the idea further with Tweet This, which caches the shortened URLs so they aren’t fetched on every page load, and taps right into Twitter’s API so your readers don’t have to copy and paste.
Twitter has an API where anything that appears after the equal sign in the URL http://twitter.com/home/?status= appears in the post box. You may want to mention it in your description; you could easily use something like
<?php echo ‘<a href=”http://twitter.com/home/?status=’ . TinyLink() . ‘” title=”Post to Twitter”>’ . TinyLink() . ‘</a>’; ?>
to do that.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-13T17:10:10.http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2007/03/22/integrating-twitter-into-your-wordpress-blog/
My suggestion for Twittering is Tweet This, because I created it to fix a problem I was having. I wanted an easy way for my readers to share my blog posts on Twitter, but I found that I’d have to shorten the URLs in advance as they eat up the 140 characters. Tweet This does just that, adding an icon to each of your blog posts which people can click to post to Twitter (if they’re logged in).
There are many plugins for cross-posting your blog posts to Twitter, or showing your tweets on your blog… but none that do this.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-13T17:04:59.http://techdebug.com/blog/2008/07/01/twitter-wordpress-plugin-autolink-to-username/
That’s an awesome idea; I haven’t seen anyone else do it. Much easier then typing the whole HTML tag.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-13T17:02:52.http://www.onlinesalessuccess.biz/twitter-plug-in-make-wordpress-tweet-able/
You can add Tweet This to the list of WordPress plugins for Twitter; this one’s different because it lets your readers tweet your posts with ease.
Twitter just gets more addictive every day. I’m glad I don’t have an iPhone.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-13T16:53:01.http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2007/04/10-best-twitter-tools-for-wordpress-blogs/
Interesting list. Hadn’t heard of TwitThis; it’s a bit like Tweet This which I created, except it uses JavaScript, whereas my plugin allows your readers to share your posts on Twitter with a TinyURL (or is.gd, Th8.us, etc.) created and stored in your WP database.
I was disappointed that most of the Twitter plugins are for displaying your tweets rather than facilitating the sharing of your content by others, which was the reason for Tweet This.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-13T12:14:32.http://www.craigharper.com.au/2008/09/few.html
The truth I got from this article is that many people have great ideas and concepts, but their worthless unless you are courageous enough to develop them. Often, that takes a lot of hard work. If you’re afraid of hard work, then you’re not one of the few.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-13T12:12:08.http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/back-to-basics-the-big-picture.html
Great article, love the photography references. What your life really needs is a zoom lens; being stuck with a prime lens at 18mm or 200mm or even 50mm won’t cut it. With a zoom lens, you can focus in on details as needed, then zoom out to keep track of the picture, while seamlessly holding a middle view that is neither wide-angle nor telephoto.
Sure, you won’t do any of these things as sharply as you would with three separate lenses. But you can’t be wasting time changing lenses when you’re at a broken traffic light.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-13T12:07:20.http://freelanceswitch.com/general/tips-for-wearing-multiple-hats/
This is solid advice. I especially agree with embracing diversity; you have to be involved in every step as a freelancer, or contract the work out to others. Managing your finances can’t just go undone.
I blogged about the dangers of scheduling in The Irrationality of Apportionment; what often happens is that the moment you’re struck with inspiration for that great article, you realize your schedule says you have to balance your checkbook. Then you do that, come back to your article an hour later, and there’s no spark left.
SO, I recommend you keep your schedule flexible. Rigid schedules are only good if you’re not good at managing your time to start, but you can transition to a flexible schedule as you become more self-motivated. Then, leave a lot of time open by not scheduling anything close to the deadline, but instead way before it’s due. That way, you can get “side-tracked” by inspiration without worrying about the schedule.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-13T11:58:49.http://www.yieldingwealth.com/savers-losing-out-in-the-current-economy/
Unfortunately, since we have a fiat currency that’s being expanded at a rate of 15% a month in “national debt” to the “Federal” Reserve, our money becomes progressively less valuable. It’s only a matter of time before we have hyper-inflation like post-war Germany and our money is replaced by Ameros which will be just as bad.
While the international bankers continue to gain, people like you and me with $15,000 in our savings accounts lose, because all our hard work is gradually being erased.
I don’t believe in needless debt. Putting your money into real property like a house, a car, a printing press, gold bullion, or something you need is a great idea, and this is a great time to do it. That means BUYING those items; not renting or leasing. Mortgages are okay if they’re necessary. But saving the money for retirement, if retirement is more than ten years off, is a bad idea because by then our money will be valueless.
The real way to plan for retirement is to build passive streams of income like royalties or websites with affiliate advertising, which can continue on their own when you stop working. Saving lots of money now and then making no new money after retirement just won’t work.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-13T11:46:35.http://successbeginstoday.org/wordpress/2008/09/goal-setting-determination-versus-stubbornness/
They sound like the same thing to me. Determination is merely the kind of stubbornness we like, while ordinary stubbornness is the type we don’t like. If you think someone is stubborn, maybe they’re determined and you’re just jealous of their determination.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-13T08:10:41.http://support.synhosting.com/
Hello,
When I signed up, it said I was getting a six month bonus (PDF attached), but now I’m being billed after three months unexpectedly. I’m going to be sticking around with SYN Hosting for a long time, so getting six months free would be nice. Is the first invoice mistaken?
Also: the new bill is for $9.99 for one month. Can I get the six-month discount? ($50 / 6 months)
Thanks,
Richard
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-12T16:53:07.http://www.consumingexperience.com/2008/09/importance-of-dating-stories-articles.html
I thought this was going to be about real dating! Ha ha.
Anyway, I do agree how important dates are. For any news site or blog, the URL for each entry should have the date in it.
On the other hand, if the site contains timeless content rather than passing news, I recommend against putting the date in the URL or displaying it prominently. It dates the article. Some people recommend hiding the date for an impression of recentness, but that’s unnecessary. Just put it at the top or bottom in gray.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-12T16:48:19.http://madramblingsofchris.blogspot.com/2008/09/hey-its-911.html
If you search “911 fraud,” you’ll find there’s a lot of evidence that the destruction of the towers was an inside job. Buildings like that are quite resilient; they’re designed to be hit by several air planes and burn for many hours without falling. The towers did neither, and they remain the only buildings to be single-handedly defeated by airplanes. A few thousand gallons of jet fuel should be nothing for a strong steel tower.
Also, watch how they fall. They fall at free-fall speed, as though charges have been placed for a controlled demolition. If they were falling from the damage from the airplanes, it would be much slower and more drawn out.
9/11 was perpetrated by the leaders in our government as an excuse to remove our remaining freedoms in the name of safety. We actually lose both and gain neither. This is not our country anymore.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-12T08:53:06.http://www.runlancaster.com/blog/netweaving/what-are-your-networking-challenges
Great idea. I know how easy it is to get stuck lurking on forums, communities, Twitter, or even blog comments, but it’s much more better to get involved. You meet lots of interesting people too!
Some people lurk through their whole lives. Starting a blog definitely demonstrates that you’re not a lurker, but you should maintain it by continuing to cover your topic, and it should be fun if you love your topic.
I started using Twitter four months ago, and while I don’t have too many followers or conversations, I use it as a running journal of my projects and thoughts (400+ tweets) so far.
Great use of the Tweet This plugin, by the way. It fits right in with ShareThis, Print This, and the others.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-11T16:56:29.http://gulopine.gamemusic.org/2008/jul/14/bitly/
Giving users control over the domain instead of random hashes does seem risky and is definitely inefficient in the database. That’s why I haven’t done this over at Th8.us.
TinyURL lets you enter a “custom alias” now, which seems to work well. It’s the same as bit.ly. http://tinyurl.com/amazon There’s an example of where a company missed the boat. “microsoft” and “google” both go to the right sites, but others do not.
When short URL services let users pick, they’ve basically become domain registrars in their own right. I wouldn’t be surprised if we encounter court cases over trademark infringement and such as bit.ly and TinyURL get more popular.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-11T14:51:54.Email to partner@twitter.com
Tweet This WordPress plugin
Hey,
Just shooting you a message about this cool WordPress plugin called Tweet This I created. It adds a button to each of your posts which your readers can click to share the post on Twitter (using the Twitter API i.e. http://twitter.com/home/?status=hello). It includes the post title, and it shortens the URL in advance through Th8.us, is.gd, TinyURL, or several others (configurable). The problem normally is that while you shorten URLs through TinyURL, that’s not till after clicking “update” so the full length of the original URL counts toward the 140 characters. Not so with Tweet This. This will get a lot more people sharing posts from the blogosphere on Twitter.
Cheers,
Richard
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-11T01:36:11.http://www.dailyseoblog.com/2008/09/add-a-twitter-button-on-your-posts-wordpress-plugin-tweet-this/
Hello Mr. Mani! I just released Tweet This v1.1. Your download link goes straight to it, since that’s the link for the current version.
I upped the bird to 24-bit color, so it doesn’t look smudgy anymore. By default, it works the same as v1.0, but it includes the post title in the tweet text. Also, short URLs are cached, and there are some options under Settings > Tweet This. You can pick your URL service (Th8.us, TinyURL, is.gd, etc.), choose a small “Tweet This” link at the bottom of each post instead of the big bird, or disable auto-insertion entirely and use tweet_this_text_link() or tweet_this_small() in your theme (within the loop). Try it out!
@Srijith: I fixed that bug in 1.1. I had my CSS wrong, so in 1.0, the icon actually disappears after you click it. Now it should work right.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-09T08:57:39.http://trac.mu.wordpress.org/ticket/734
Ideally we’d have the option of having a shared or separated user pool, because I like the current behavior, where my users have the same credentials at both sites.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-08T11:32:02.http://wordpress.org/support/topic/199241
Tarballs (tar.gz format) are more efficient because the files are compressed as a whole. The cost is that to extract one file (i.e. wp-config.php), your computer has to read through every file in the archive. The benefit is that the compression is more efficient, which is why the file size is smaller than ZIP.
The file sizes listed on the WordPress download page are just plain wrong. They should be 1.5MB and 1.3MB or 1.4MiB and 1.2MiB, not 1.2MB and 1.0MB. 1 kilobyte == 1000 bytes, 1 kibibyte == 1024 bytes, even though Windows says a kibibyte is a kilobyte.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-08T11:09:21.Reading other personal development blogs and improving my design has been my biggest time sink. I’m finally getting away from that and writing with my own voice, though.
Blog design is over-rated. Unless you have yellow text at 6 pt. on a white background, you’re fine. Interesting content gets read by interesting people, even if they have to read it in an ugly format. Once you build up popularity from your interesting content, people will be begging for the privilege of redesigning your blog for you.
Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-08T01:38:50.http://mu.wordpress.org/forums/topic.php?id=2662
I think users should be able to change the slugs of their categories and tags also. I noticed that when you go to Manage > Tags and click a tag, the tag slug field is still there, but whatever you type in it is ignored. For the category edit pages, the slug field is completely removed.
The slug field may be removed / non-working in MU to keep compatibility with the wp_sitecategories table; we don’t want users to be able to change the slugs there. But that can be worked around I’m sure. WPMU v2.7, maybe?
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Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-22T19:24:30.http://kikolani.com/monsoon-cloud-rolling-in.html
In reply to this comment, by Kristi:
@Kristi: I know what that’s like! You’d need a really wide-angle lens to see the whole thing, or you’d have to stitch a bunch of frames together.
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Richard X. Thripp at 2008-09-27T00:06:01.http://kikolani.com/monsoon-cloud-rolling-in.html
In reply to this comment, by Kristi:
@Kristi: Very good! I have a Canon Rebel XTi and use the kit lens as my wide-angle lens (at 18mm), because all I have is it and a 50mm lens. I’ll have to buy another one some time—either a macro lens or a good zoom lens covering a big range.
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