http://blog.dominicanjourneys.com/

Zoe & Gav

I’ve thought about it a lot, and have come to the conclusion that I would get more from my feeds if they came in through my Twitter timeline. There would be no pressure to go through ‘unread’ items, just as I have no intention of reading every single tweet that goes through my timeline.

Here’s how I did it.

1. Set up a separate Twitter account.

Sign out of Twitter if you’re already logged in. Click on the Sign Up Now button.

Register for your new Twitter account. This account will be automatically updated with items from your reading list, as they come in.

2. Set up a TwitterFeed account.

Go to TwitterFeed and click on “Sign In”. You don’t need to register for an account, because TwitterFeed uses OpenID. That means that you can log in using your Google username and password.

Click on “Sign In with OpenID”. You will be able to sign in using one of several accounts.

OpenID lets you sign in securely using your credentials from any of these sites. When you choose Google, you get the following login popup:

Enter your Google username and password.

3. Add a Feed to your TwitterFeed

Once you are logged in, click on the “Create New Feed” button.

Click this.

You must choose a Twitter account that TwitterFeed will post to using your feed. Click on the Authenticate with Twitter button.

Click the big blue button

Very similar to OpenID, this part uses OAuth. It lets you provide your Twitter username and password without actually giving that information to TwitterFeed.

Enter your username and password and click "Allow"

Once your Twitter account is associated with the feed, you may proceed to add the RSS address.

Enter the name and url of the RSS feed

Make sure to click on “Advanced Settings”. These settings will help you differentiate this feed’s items from other feeds, as you will probably have multiple feeds in your reading list.

Update every 1/2 hour, display Title only, and put the feed name in "Prefix"

In Advanced Settings, make sure the feed is updated every 1/2 hour. Change the Post to include “title only”, and add the feed’s name under “post prefix”. You can leave all other settings the way they are.

You must repeat this step for every feed in your reading list. You can copy the feed addresses from your Google Reader Subscription list if you wish.

4. Follow your “Reading List” Twitter account

Log out of Twitter, and log back in using your regular account.

Navigate to your new Twitter account and make sure you are following it.

Make sure you are following your reading list

5. Enjoy your Reading List in your Twitter timeline!

Your reading list items should now show up in your Twitter timeline.

Feel free to follow my reading list

It’s certainly not exhaustive, and is definitely specific to what I want, but if you see any glaring omissions, please let me know! I want to make an informed choice

Check out the spreadsheet here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AufZNzUX87uQdHlxNDVFRkswRnlNRWpySURuNlFua0E&hl=en

Just so you know here are my basic criteria this spreadsheet is based on:

• I’m looking for rates for London Ontario
• I want a basic phone line, and don’t want any features (call display? call waiting? no thanks!)
• Most of our phone calls are long distance, but within Ontario
• I want need high speed Internet!
• Gavin just got a PC mobile phone, so I threw together the numbers for getting me one too, and dropping our land line.

Obviously, feel free to take the spreadsheet and modify it for your specific situation - if you share your new spreadsheet back to me, I can combine them so it is a more thorough source

The current summary? I can save about $25/month by switching from Bell/Sympatico/Provincial Unlimited to Tek Savvy with their as-you-go long distance!! However, my Internet performance  may suffer. According to the scans I ran [1] [2] with my up-to 12M down Sympatico I average about 5.6 - 5.8M down, and Tek Savvy only offers up-to 5M down. Hopefully their ‘up-to’ is more accurate than Sympatico.

Zoe and I have been watching Deep Space Nine lately, after someone told us “it gets better in the later seasons”. While we have mixed feelings about the show so far, we keep watching it.

What we don’t like about Deep Space Nine

The number one pet peeve about Deep Space Nine that we have is that all aliens, even during “first contact”, speak English! This just does not make sense. I can accept the all aliens look mostly like humans, except with unique facial features, and that all aliens are at the same level of technological advance, but c’mon people. Not even all Earthlings speak English.

The number two pet peeve is the intro sequence. It is about four minutes too long, and SO boring!

What we like about Deep Space Nine

Star Trek is filled with all kinds of issues of racism, er, specism, especially Deep Space Nine, which sparks a lot of ethical discussion. The Ferengi and the Humans don’t get along very well, especially since it is common and expected among the Ferengi to stab one another in the back for the smallest amount of profit.

How can you treat someone equal when they will not think twice about throwing you out the airlock for a penny?

The most interesting thing about Deep Space Nine is that the show gradually begins to explore different races, or factions, among a species. The idea that an entire planet believes the same thing and follows one leader isn’t very believable.

DS9 starts to explore civil wars on Bajor, after an occupation by the ancient-Roman-like Cardassians. After ousting the evil Cardassians, the Bajorans turn to fighting amongst each other over power over the people.

What do you think? We know that racism is bad - does that extend to alien species, like the Ferengi?

She dusted it off and began scanning the slides into the computer. When the old laptop started to buckle under the weight of 1000’s of scans, she called us. We set her up with an FTP account so that she can upload the photos to our server, and Zoe began searching for a script to allow easy browsing of the online photos.

To view the slides, click here.

She started with PHP Browse Folder, a simple (and free) solution from AlumniOnline. When we had the files listed, we added icons (from the Tango Icon Gallery) for files or folders (by default they look the same (file extensions are not shown)), threw Thickbox into the mix, and customized our own “Play” button to start a slideshow, for those that miss the old way of viewing these pictures.

We had a little trouble with finding out the actual PATH to our website on the 1&1 server. All information pointed to root (/), but this clearly wasn’t the case. PHP Browse Folder kept telling us “invalid path“.

Fine, I thought. I’ll just make my own version. Humph! I quickly created a PHP file and started to use the scandir() function. I must’ve had a typo in there, because upon running the script, I saw that there was a syntax error in /var/www/htdocs/photos.php. Instead of attempting to fix the error, I went back to PHP Browse Folder and plugged in the newfound PATH!

Once the PATH was correct, PHP Browse Folder worked like a charm. A little styling, and it was ready to send to the family for their slideshow-viewing pleasure.

You can see the final product here.

I just got back this video of a presentation that I did last term. We were supposed to do a speech in <5 minutes about some library issue. I actually had to cut a lot from my original speech to get it under time. I was going to tell this story about Emily Dickenson, the famout poet, who had a small handful of items published when she was alive. After she died, her family and friends found the piles and piles of letters and poems that she had written, but they didn’t even know they existed before. If ol’ Em had locked everything up with a password on the PC, then we wouldn’t have the pleasure of studying her in first year English when doing our BA. True story!

We were marked not on content, but on how well we spoke. Basically, if we were as charismatic as Obama we got 110% — I was close but not quite there

Next up, I’m making a video podcast. It might be a screen cast (which is a video of what’s I’m doing on a computer) or it might be something else. It’s not due for 1 1/2 weeks so it’s too soon to say!

Of couse I’m open to inspired suggestions

Update: Click here to download!

I dare you not to have this song in your head now.

Here’s the video in case you don’t know the song, or because of me you really want to hear it now. Or, if you are saying right now, “Oh I wanna go, I wanna go, oh won’t you please take me home”.

It’s 1/2 German and 1/2 English.

The idea is that if you are learning German then you would be able to listen to this as practice. I wanted it to be familiar enough that it would be fun for various levels of German. Zeth told me that he listened to it 3 times, and then he had it all figured out. I hope you like it too!

I have to make another one, but I don’t know what the skit should be about! I can’t do a blind date again. What do you think? It has to be banter based, so that you can understand what’s happening from either language.

Give me your ideas!

Update: Here is the script & translation.

Scene: Blind date.  Doesn’t go well.

Gavin:    Excuse me, are you Zoe? I’m Gavin.

Zoe: Oh, hallo Gavin. Ich erkenne dich nicht. Du siehst viel kürzer aus als ich gedacht habe.
Zoe: Oh, hello Gavin. I didn’t recognize you. You look shorter than I thought.

Gavin: I look shorter? But you’ve only seen one photo of me!

Zoe: Ha ha — Stephanie hat gesagt dass du groß warst.
Zoe: Ha ha — Stephanie said that you were tall.

Gavin: Ah, Stephanie. I was very sorry to find out she was already married when we met.

Zoe: Was meinst du?
Zoe: What do you mean?

Gavin: Oh nothing. But if she was still single…

Zoe: …hier ist deine Speisekarte. Ich möchte das Schnitzel mit Spargel.
Zoe: …here is your menu. Ich would like the schnitzel with asparagus.

Gavin: Schnitzel? Do you know the conditions they keep the calves in to make veal?

Zoe: Ich will dass nicht wissen. Kalbfleisch ist lecker.
Zoe: I don’t want to know. Veal is delicious.

Gavin: You sound just like my ex-girlfriend! So stubborn!

Zoe: Entschuldigung, vergleichst du mir mit diene Ex-Freundin?
Zoe: Excuse me? Are you comparing me to your ex-girlfriend?

Gavin: Oh, it’s a compliment, I assure you. She is wonderful … she is quite like our friend Stephanie.

Zoe: Wir wollen nicht über Stephanie sprechen. Hast du die Nudeln mit Erdnuß Soße gesehen?
Zoe: Let’s not talk about Stephanie. Have you seen the pasta with peanut sauce?

Gavin: I’m allergic to peanuts.

Zoe: Also, sollte ich es nicht bestellen?
Zoe: Well, should I not order it?

Gavin: Not unless you would like me to die.

Zoe: (pointed pause). Aber nein! Ich will nicht dass du stirbst. Ich kann einen Cäsarsalat bestellen.
Zoe: Oh no! I don’t want you to die. I can order a caesar salad.

Gavin: Do you have any medical conditions in your family?

Zoe: Warum fragst du mir über meine Krankengeschichte?
Zoe: Why do you ask about my medical history?

Gavin: I’m just wondering what our children would inherit.

Zoe: Unsere KINDER!? Wir haben doch nicht ein mal zusammen gegessen!
Zoe: Our CHILDREN!? We have not even eaten together once!

Gavin: Yes, of course. So… what do you do?

Zoe: Ich bin eine Lehrerin
Zoe: I am a teacher.

Gavin: A teacher? You’re kidding me! My mom used to be a teacher!

Zoe: Deine Mutter hat einen guten Beruf gewählt.
Zoe: Your mother chose a good career.

Gavin: No way — I think it’s a terrible choice.

Zoe: Entschuldigung?
Zoe: Excuse me?

Gavin: All teachers ever do is complain about the students.

Zoe: Ich mag meine Schüler.
Zoe: I like my students.

Gavin: All teacher’s SAY they like their students, but I know how it is. That’s the reason I became a psychiatrist. I want to help people like you.

Zoe: Ein Psychiater? Ich brauche keine Hilfe.
Zoe: A psychiatrist? I don’t need your help.

Gavin: Well, I guess that’s up to you . . .

Zoe: Oh, ich muss meine Handi antworten.
Zoe: Oh, I must answer my cellphone.

Gavin: But I didn’t hear a cell-phone ring.

Zoe: Ich habe, entschuldigung…
Hallo? …. ach nein!! Natürlich! Ich komme jetzt!
Es tut mir leid dass ich muss gehen. Es ist ein Notfall. Ich muss schnell gehen.
Zoe: I did, excuse me…
Hello? …oh no! Of course! I’m coming now!
I am so sorry, I must go. It is an emergency. I must go quickly.

Gavin: What is the matter?

Zoe: Es ist sehr … privat, persönlich. Ich muss gehen.
Zoe: It is very … private. personal. I must go.

Gavin: Can we finish dinner together some other time?

Zoe: Nein. Ich glaube dass mein Notfall wird viel zeiht nehmen. Vielleicht Jahre! Tchus!
Zoe: No. I think that my emergency will take a long time. Perhaps years! Bye!

Gavin: Good bye. . .  *pause*

*Zoe walks away*

Gavin: Imagine an emergency that will take years to deal with. I hope I never have one of those.