Craig's Week in Tech 6/4/11

Bob Stewart does a weekly random thoughts and I thought I’d try it. There is little free time in my week to blog about all sorts of things that come to mind. So perhaps this is a way to go over some thoughts and you will forgive the unpolished state just to keep the conversation going and perhaps build ideas for future blog posts.

In fact, I took a AR University webinar class that Bob taught yesterday, “orientation” - because I want to continue to teach others about AR and I want to know all I can. (maybe someday AR will hire me to be the trainer! ok... a guy can dream can't he...) Here’s a thought for you that clicked with me. In your AR name field first and last name you can add more than your name to those fields and most people do. However, one of the things you SHOULD include is you city, state reference. As we connect with others on AR via our comments, others should really associate the place where we are in case of times to refer clients they think of us geographically! Also, I just remembered... if you aren't getting the "daily drop" activerain newsletter, you should, it's great! Go over to Bob's Blog page and on the right sidebar down a ways you will see the sign up form!

What is your best google long-tail or medium-tail search? We know AR is great for getting us to the top of google, but I’m looking for examples of success, do you have one. And I’m not talking about any google search that includes your name... people who don’t already know us will not use our name in the search... Which by the way my own name search turns up some other fella that shares my name reversed and goes by the alias 007 :)

I’m going to start a rework of my website, it is really pathetic now. I created it several years ago. I’m trying to find a way to start earning money from all this work, donations probably?? it has been suggested by several and I think it is a good idea. It is possible to create a paid subscription login but that gets complicated quick of how to create the paywall gatekeeper app AND with my busy full-time schedule I’m not able to keep up with a consistent posting schedule that paid subscribers would require. hmmm, brainstorming that one, to be continued...

Are you a windows or mac person? Fortunately many of the things I write about are not dependent on which operating system but more of cloud or browser. My wife just got an iPhone and it is very cool. I still have a blechberry because that is what my corporate job has dictated to all of us (company phone). I’m very glad android is such big competition to apple, it helps keep raising the stakes. My next phone I hope will not start with a B. But speaking of windows, I saw an intro video to windows 8 this week. Win 8 looks alot like their windows smartphone UI. Kind of cool. I’m still using windows vista and haven’t even made the jump to 7 yet though I’ve had a little hands on time with 7. Do you have an iPad? Are you able to successfully work on the AR site via your tablet? Wbich reminds me... I have to make sure I add AR/ipad compatibility into my wishlist post.

This past week they picked the top 10 collages in the AR contest and happily I was there (voting by people's choice is now open through Sunday so go do it if you haven't already!) Meanwhile, I discovered via the finaliststs list a site called shapecollage.com where a couple of the entries, particularly the united states collage was created with. Don’t get me wrong I think it is a very cool collage, but it was completely computer generated. You find a batch of photos and tell it the shape you want and click! done! Hmmm, if you see my collage post, you’ll know how much time I put into my entry. Oh well, c’est la vie... it was still very fun for me to create it and I learned a TON about were all of you are located! Isn't there an ongoing famous man v. machine chess contest, who can do better? hmmm... checkmate???

I'm liking the photo site flickr for the community and inspiration of seeing others work there. In fact, one group is very inspiring that you might enjoy looking at "photography for real estate" - our own Iran Watson has some amazing stuff there - someday I'd like to enter photos into that group that are worthy. Hey, that reminds me Andre! oh yeah, he just got married I guess well cut him some slack :)

It was so cool to have met Chris last week. I love being able to have that conversation about things that we'd like to see improved. He has a ton of work ahead of him on the stability front, but we'll hopefully get enhancements added sometime soon. (starting with a better blog editor, ugh)

Well my time is up for this post... hope it wasn't too boring. I have to go do some real work now (starting that website refresh). I would love to hear your feedback on any of the thoughts above. This is one post I will not be replying back to everyone that visits (I have to get some real work done! hehe) but I'd love to hear any thoughts you have! ... especially your sharing your best long or medium tail search... have a great weekend! :)

About the Author - Craig loves technology and loves to teach others about it!
If you'd like to learn more about Craig, see recent post "Who Is Craig Daniels?"
new - subscribe to my blog via EMAIL
craig's classroom catalog shows articles with lookup by topic