Blogging

Attention all twenty something bloggers, now is your chance to leave a lasting impression on the Twenty Something Bloggers (20SB) community.

The Admins want you to create a one of a kind header to represent our social network. You can start from scratch, use Wordle as a background, or incorporate the 20SB badge in your design. Headers must be 955×200 pixels.

Each 20SB member can submit up to 5 entries but don’t forget, the contest ends August 3, 2008 and all entries must be submitted to the 20SB Header Contest Flickr Group.

While the prize for the winner is still to be determined, I think bragging rights is sufficient. For complete details of the contest, visit the 20SB blog and to spark your creativity, here’s my submission to the contest:

If you’re not already a member of 20SB, it’s not too late to sign-up.

20SB is a great community of active bloggers that are all approaching, in the middle, or just past their quarter life crisis. WIth over 1900 members and more than 100 groups, you’ll find a diverse community and plenty of reading material to get your creative juices flowing for your next blog post.

In fact, 20SB is full of activities with blogger meetups, blog swaps, and is currently in the process of rolling out category specific RSS feeds for everyone. Click here for more information about the RSS feeds.

What I like most about 20SB is the active forum, the friendly folks, and the fact that anyone can nominate a member to be a featured blogger on the homepage. Even more exciting is the fact that the group has recently been added to Alltop and thanks to Zakstar, a 20SB group has been added to LinkedIn.

With that said, what are you waiting for? Come join us.

(Photo Credit: 20SB)

(Banner Credit: “Cityscape and skyline brushes” by c Luddy
Tag Cloud created with Wordle.net)

This past weekend I tried to make the leap from WordPress.com to self hosting HeyStephanie.com. If you visited over the weekend you would have noticed that my blog was down and/or timing out - that was my weekend of madness.

Long story short, the move didn’t work out the way I wanted it to and it caused more frustration and aggravation than I had hoped for. I won’t go into details but I will say that the lesson learned was, “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” I’m perfectly happy with my blog hosted at Wordpress.com but that doesn’t mean I won’t take another stab at self-hosting. It just means that when the time comes, I’ll most likely find someone to do it for me at a reasonable cost. Work smarter not harder right?

With that said, I want to say thank you to everyone that took the time to help me and contacted me to let me know if the site was loading or not.

Special thanks to these awesome folks below, you guys rock!

acnatta: http://dresramblings.com/

yeaiknit: http://yeaiknit.com/blog/

tinylittlebit: http://tinylittlebit.wordpress.com/

ralph: http://ralph.fm/

(Photo Credit: diegocervo)

Wordle lets you create “word clouds” from an RSS feed, a del.ici.ous username, or you can paste in a bunch of text to generate you word cloud.

Once you have the text all set, you can tweak your word cloud with different layouts, fonts, and color schemes. And because images created by the Wordle application are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license, you can use your Wordle on anything from book covers to T-shirts. I added my Wordle to my new Contact page.

Just remember to let people know how you created your Wordle. If you took an image from the Wordle gallery, don’t forget to mention where you got it from.

Thanks to Andrew, author of The Working Title, for highlighting Wordle in his blog. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have found out about this awesome site. And kudos to Jonathan Feinberg for creating Wordle, I absolutely love it.

Editor’s Note: I wanted to share with you the guest post I did for Maxie at IHateSoMuch for the 20SB Big Blog Swap. Maxie’s a blogoholic from Chicago and a featured blogger in Alltop’s Twenty Something. If you haven’t checked her out yet, please do - you won’t regret it.

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Ever since college, Post-It notes have been a must have in my arsenal of tools to stay organized. I could easily write myself a reminder and stick it to my monitor, mark important chapters for easy reference, and my favorite – write a quick love note to my husband and stick it to the door before he leaves for work.

Recently, I discovered Sheer Color Post-It notes which has literally taken my reading experience to the next level. My friend and I share marketing books with each other all the time but when I come across an important quote, I’m tempted to highlight it but can’t because it’s not my book. Now with sheer color post-it notes, I can highlight, circle, and make notes without getting reprimanded.

My dependence on these sticky square pads isn’t rare. In fact, if you run a Google search on “how to use Post-It notes,” you’ll receive thousands of results including Leon Ho’s list of Twenty Uses for a Post-It Note. How do you use your Post-It notes?

What I love most about Post-It notes is that they can be used for other activities besides reminders, planning, and brainstorming. To prove my point, you can check out the entries in the “Post-it® Notes: One Million Uses & Counting…” contest on YouTube.

Here’s my favorite entry:

(Video Credit: Emaz88)

Today’s guest blogger is Maxie, author of I Hate So Much and member of Twenty Something Bloggers. We’re both taking part in the 20somethingbloggers’ Big Blog Swap. Special thanks to Ben Boudreau for organizing this event and thanks to Maxie for her guest post.

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Hi everyone! My name is Maxie and I normally write at I Hate So Much… but for today, the day of the 20 something bloggers swap, I’ll be writing here. I don’t really write about any certain topic on my blog, but for this switch I will be writing about what Stephanie usually writes about– Social Networks and other Internet related matters. This is perfect for me because I’m basically a slave to the social networks of the Internet. The thing I’m a slave to the most? My blog.

Some people may not think of blogging as a social networking tool, but I think it’s the most powerful of them all. When I started blogging it was just as an outlet for my every day thoughts. I never imagined that anyone would want to read it, let alone subscribe to it. The more people read my blog, the more I wrote. I would go and read my commenters’ blogs and give them my feedback and thoughts on what they had written. Even though blogging started as a solitary activity, it turned into much more.

I’ve been blogging for a little over 6 months and I’ve built many friendships with people I’ve met through my blog. My summer is filled with trips with bloggers, blogger meetups, and the prospect of writing about all of it on the place where it all began. My own place on the internet that has turned into much, much more.

For me blogging isn’t just a way to let out your feelings and talk to others– it changes everything. It changes the way I look at things, how I observe situations, and even my plans for the future. It has changed my life in huge ways and I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything (other than maybe a billion dollars.)

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I have 32 subscriptions to blogs and 1000+ items in my Google Reader that’s waiting to be read. While I filter through these unread items and take steps to simplify and organize my RSS feeds, here are a couple of standout posts, websites, and tools that I found worthy to be highlighted this week.

Posts

• A Flickr Project for Everybody at ChrisBrogan.com
• The Main Difference Between Twitter and Plurk by Darren Rowse at Problogger.net
• Syndicate Your Personal Brand Through Social Media by Dan Schawbel at Personal Branding Blog

Websites

• KidZui - The Internet for Kids: An innovative way to stay in tune with your kids’ online activities
• TinyURL: Shorten that long URL for your tweets or plurks
• Searchme Visual Search Beta: See pictures of web pages that answer your search

Tools

• TweetLater.com: Schedule Future-Dated Tweets
• FlogBlog Facebook Application: Easily integrate your blog to your Facebook profile

Ping.fm is the most effective way to update your status on multiple social networks. A single post to Ping.fm can update 16 popular social services at the same time so you don’t have to sign into each account individually. You can post a status update, a blog, or micro-blog through one platform and posting a link won’t be a problem at all - Ping.fm will automatically convert it to a shorter link before posting to your services.

This week my status updates to Facebook, LinkedIn, Mashable, Myspace, Plaxo Pulse, Plurk, and Twitter and took less than a minute to complete. If I signed into each account individually, it would have taken me even longer.

Ping.fm saves me time and it can save you time as well.Go to Ping.fm and sign up with the beta code “pingofpings”.

After you sign up, check out a quick-and-easy tutorial that Trevor at BordelineTheory.com put together. Or you can check out Bwana.tv’s video tutorial below.

(Photo Credit: Ping.fm)

(Video Credit: Bwana.tv)

(Photo Credit: Misty Phillips)

We had just got out of a late meeting when I returned to my desk and saw this outside our office window. A brush fire had broke out on I-805 and the smoke started to fill the sky. We gathered around the window in shock but were relieved when we saw the firefighters arrive.

Since the fire was just off the freeway, employees that usually take the I-805 southbound, left the office because we knew that the brush fire would effect traffic. As I got onto the onramp, the rubbernecking had already began. Speeds were less than 10 mph and drivers were noticeably pulling out their camera phones to take a snap. Fortunately, traffic let up after Clairemont Mesa boulevard and I was able to get home at a decent hour.

Today’s event reminded me of last year’s firestorm. Our home was threatened by the Harris fire and the city issued a voluntary evacuation for our area (see photo below). Instead of driving to Qualcomm, we flew out of San Diego to Scottsdale, Arizona. Having been through previous fire seasons, we knew that the air quality would be poor and polluted in San Diego. (I honestly hope that history doesn’t repeat itself any time soon.)

It’s interesting to note that during last year’s firestorm our relatives and friends were scattered all over San Diego. We couldn’t use our cell phones to contact each other so we had to find another means of communication. Interestingly enough, every one of our family members and friends were connected on Myspace. To update our family and friends, we used my Myspace account to send bulletins to everyone ensuring our safety.

When we arrived in Arizona, we kept a close eye on the news and found a blog called Wildifires 2007 by SignOnSanDiego.com. They kept us up to date on the status of the fires and had links to evacuation centers. Several posts received comments and questions by subscribers and everyone pulled together to share information on where to find help and shelter.

Simply put, social media helped us communicate with our family, friends, and neighbors and proved to be an effective means of communication.

(Photo Credit: SignonSanDiego.com)

I thought it would be ifun to create my very own Social Map. It’s a break out of websites, forums, online communities, and other social networking platforms that I’m a part of and have contributed to (i.e. LinkedIn, Myspace, Ning, etc.).

Click here for a more interactive map where you can zoom in and out.

HeyStephanie’s Social Map

You can even see which online services I’ve switched from and to. For example, I used to blog on Xanga and Vox but now I’m on Wordpress. I even switched from Photobucket to Flickr because it was easier for me to share photos with friends.

Much like the Brands in a Day Portrait, I’m sure I’ve left out a couple of items but it’s still fascinating to look at.

It’ll be interesting to see how this map grows in a year’s time. A few questions that come into mind are:

• Will I be using the same social networks?
• What new platforms will be added to my map?
• Which will I deactivate?

How does your Social Map look like?

I was excited when I saw the question above on LinkedIn because I’m always interested to find out what other people are using to make their life easier at work. I’m glad I checked in on this otherwise I wouldn’t have found out about JingProject.com.

Jing allows you to capture any image on your desktop (includes adding text and arrows) and gives you the option of creating videos. Jing then gives you a link that you can share with your co-workers so they can see exactly what you see.

Now you can avoid lengthy and drawn out text tutorials with Jing. This is absolutely what I needed in the office.

Here’s a video about Jing:

So what about you? What Web 2.0 tools do you find most useful for businesses?

(Photo Credit: JasterArts)

“i-Lighter is a cool way to highlight, grab, and save text and graphics from virtually any Web site and store it for future use.” - PC WORLD

The majority of my reading material is online and if you’re like me, the materials usually covered are articles, blogs, forums, reviews, RSS feeds and more. With all this information, I was notorious for printing pages and depleting the printer ink at home.

Now I can help the environment and my budget with i-Lighter. It’s useful and it’s free. I don’t have to print articles to highlight and I don’t waste any ink. I love it because i-Lighter gets over two hurdles with one leap. I can highlight text, tables, and images from any web page, have it organized in my account by subject, and share it with my colleagues.

In fact, earlier this month they released twitterlights. If you come across an interesting article online, use the i-Lighter to right-click and twitter it to your friends. The URL of the web page will automatically be sent as a TinyURL and your i-Light will be stored in your i-Lighter account for you to organize later.

See how i-Lighter works:

“A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. It is used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.” - Wikipedia

Mind maps are great when I need to get my ideas out on a page. In fact, I use mind maps exclusively to map out campaign concepts, types of medium, and prize categories before walking into and during a brainstorm meeting. I also use them for blogging concepts, story ideas, and other creative endeavors. So naturally, my notebook is filled with diagrams. Unfortunately, there are times when I map out ideas too quickly that when I go back and look at them, I don’t understand what I wrote… I had to find a way to do it better.

Just recently, I discovered mind42.com and nearly flipped out. Now I can create mind maps in my browser for free and collaborate with co-workers. I can assign icons and colors to specific nodes and best of all, I can add images too.

Here’s a quick overview of the features at mind42.com:

Now get mapping!

(Video Credit: Mind42)

Gravatars are showing up on blogs everywhere and for good reason.

A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites. Avatars help identify your posts on web forums, so why not on weblogs?

3 Reasons To Get a Gravatar

1. Get noticed. Avatars help others easily identify your posts in forums. With Gravatar, you can apply the same exact principle when you comment on Gravatar enabled sites. I’ve already clicked on several Gravatars which led me to discover new blogs to add to my Google reader.
2. Consistency. Use the same avatar on blogs, forums, Flickr, or any other social medium you use and people are bound to recognize you.
3. Multiple personalities welcomed. Got multiple emails? Don’t want to be stuck with the same avatar? You’re in luck. Gravatar lets you manage multiple email accounts and avatars.
4. It’s Easy. You can have your Gravatar in just seconds. All you need is an email address and it’s FREE. Easily upload your image and crop to fit the avatar size. That’s it! You’re done.
5. Other Platforms Support it. Disqus and SezWho also support Gravatars.

So what are you waiting for? Get yours now!

Last month, I came across a thought-provoking blog entry by Patricia Volonakis Davis titled, “From an Older Woman to a Younger One.” Her entry inspired a lot of others as well. Over 200 comments were posted to her entry.

Those of you that know me personally know that this blog isn’t my first. I’ve had blogs dedicated to each and every single hobby of mine and posted on many blogging platforms. In fact, my first blog post went live in the winter of 2002 on Angelfire. From there, I’ve kept several blogs for years but have kept them private from the public eye until now.

I finally feel that it’s time to drop my online anonymity and start sharing my personal thoughts and experiences in life and social media in general.

Having hidden my previous blogs for so long, it’s refreshing to finally unveil myself and start engaging with a community whose interests are similar to my own.

Watch out world, Stephanie’s got a new blog.