Blogging 101: Catering to your Design Needs

Mark Hanlon
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Blogging 101: Catering to your Design Needs

Todays Blogging 101 assignment was to add and/or customize two widgets, one text-based and one image-based. Which sounds like great fun.

The main reason why I choose my theme is that it appeared to provide a “place” for all of my content.  Maybe I am just a little bit of an organization freak, but hey, unlike home and real life which I feel I have no control, I can try to be a little more proactive here.

My blog design includes 4 widgets for content, the sidebar, and 3 widget areas along the bottom of the site.  My biggest challenge was not finding a place to put my ideas, but to ensure that there was not any duplicate content on the home page.

Here is the current layout of my widgets:

  • Widget 1: Large 700 X 400 Image linking to a post
  • Widget 2: & widget 3: Category specific posts
  • Widget 4: Display the five most recent posts – however, do not duplicate posts from Widget areas 1 through 3
  • Bottom1: My Tag cloud; Bottom 2: Recent comments and s link to my calendar; Bottom 3: Home of my  Flickr photos.
  • Sidebar 1: A smorgasburg of the must haves; contact information , Avout Me (text widget),

Design Challenges and Difficult to Implement

So here were a few challenges in configuring my widget areas:

  • How to separate my posts by category – Difficulty 1
  • How to create a catch all post section; basically show the last 5 articles, however with a twist, that are not displayed anywhere else on the page. – Difficulty 5
  • How is the best way to show my Flickr content
    • URL Link – Difficulty 1
    • Thumbnails in a widget area – Difficulty 3
    • A dedicated page to showcase my photos – Difficulty 3
  • Add the blue WordPress “Follow Blog”Button

My Solutions

After a lot of trial and error – here were solutions I came up with.  Let me know how you think the trio works.

Separate my Posts by Category

This was a pretty simple solution thanks to a great Plugin that came with my theme called – Genesis – Feature Page.  In addition to adding posts by category, I was also able to easily configure a Featured Image of varying sizes with each listing and control the number of posts listed.    After all, as much as we love to write, a picture can do an amazing job at catching our readers eye.  The Plugin also had the ability to offset the number of posts.  This looks handy if you have a sticky post — the option would all you to start displaying posts on your home page from number two (skip the most recent / sticky).

Create a Catch-All Post

The idea of a catch-all area seemed pretty easy at first glance, just tell Genesis – Feature Page, to display all categories.  Bingo – the five most recent posts are displayed.  The only trouble was that, if one of my Category Widgets had a new article there was duplication between the two lists; with one area showing the most recent article on for example, Crohn’s Disease, and the catch all list displaying the same article.  A second issue that quickly popped up is that Blogging 101 posts, were taking over.

In doing some research – the most common solution was to create a new Category, such as Featured Posts or Home Page, and link articles that were not found under the other Categories.  So when an article moved off the Topic specific category and to the catch all category, flag it with a new Category.  (Did that make sense?).  Honestly, trying to remember to move an article from one Category to the Next seemed like too much work in the long run and prone to errors. So the hunt was on.

Idea 1: I did a little more digging into my Feature Page there was a very setting called, EXCLUDE PREVIOUSLY DISPLAYED POSTS.  Seems like the perfect solution right?  And truthfully was almost perfect until I stumbled upon a little hiccup that I will try to explain.  All web pages, load from top to bottom and loads my widgets as follows: Widget 1: Display Today’s Post; Widget 2: Yesterdays Post; Widget 3: Display an earlier post from yesterday; Widget 4: Catch All (Do not show previous posts): Will Return to this one in a moment; Widget 5: Blogging 101 Posts.

So off I went, engaged the Exclude Previous Posts, in my catch all widgets and crossed my fingers.  Todays post skipped, yesterdays post skipped, earlier post from yesterday, skipped — all great!  Wait — all my Blogging 101 posts are showing up in Widget 4 and again in Widget 5.  Why is that, I said – exclude previous posts.  Humm ….. well, as I noted, web pages are loaded from top to bottom.  What is happening is that Widget 4 area, recognizes all of the other widget areas that load before them, and exclude them when it is populating Widget 4.  As the Blogging 101 post are not show in areas 1 to 3, they are populated in my catch all area.  Ok, back to the drawing board and the hunt was on.

Idea 2:  So close, yet so far.  So how can I have my catch all work, as it has been, and in addition, ignore my Blogging 101 category?  Text Widget to the rescue; and a little custom coding.  I won’t bore you with the PHP code here, but in simplest terms, I took the php code that was use to create the feature Post Plugin; and included an additional line of code to exclude my Blogging 1o1 Category.  Bingo – perfect!

Add Flickr

I have been able to incorporate Flickr into two sections of my site with the help of two great apps, one as a widget on the bottom of my homepage and a second as a Page.

Flickr Badges Widget – is a simple widget to display your Flickr latest photostream in widget area using javascript from http://www.flickr.com/badge_code_v2.gne. Find your Flickr ID from Flickr NSID Lookup if you do not know your flickr id. With its very beautiful widget interface, tabbed system, and powered by jQuery makes this plugin easier to customize. Just put your Flickr ID and your widget will be ready to lunch.

Key Features & Options

  • Beautiful widget interface
  • The type of images from user or group.
  • Flickr NSID support.
  • Get the image from recent or use random function.
  • Displays up to 10 images.
  • Optional image sizes.
  • Intro text for additional text before the widget content.
  • Outro text for additional text after the widget content.
  • Custom scripts and stylesheets for each widget.
  • Free supports.

Flickr Photostream – Plugin that allows you to show your Flickr Photostream, Photosets, Galleries, Group Pools, or Tags in your blog, with a very elegant and awesome layout.  With this highly customizable Plugin, You can configure the height of the rows to have a grid that can be like the justified grid of Flickr or of Google+. But, you can do more! For example you can configure the margin between the images, create rows with fixed height, or decide if you want to justify the last row or not!  Be sure to check out the developer, Miro’s website for examples on this great app.

Features:

  • A gallery with the same layout of Flickr or Google+, configurable as you want.
  • Fast and light. Also uses a cache to load galleries instantly.
  • You can show photos from your Flickr Photostream, from a Photoset, from a Gallery, or from a Group Pool.
  • You can show all the photos that has some Tags.
  • You can create multiple galleries with different settings, also in the same page.
  • Customizable image sizes, always with a justified disposition.
  • Photo titles shown when the mouse is above.
  • Decide if use a lightbox (Colorbox or Swipebox) to show the original photo, or Flickr.
  • Customizable style, you need just to change a CSS.
  • Pagination with SEO friendly URLs. Decide if you want to show the newer photos or not.
  • Available in English and Italian

So there you have it — my Widget Changes and the Pluggins that power them!

Follow Blog Button – While there are several ways visitors to your site can follow your WordPress.com blog, you also have the ability to create a Follow Blog button that can be added to external websites. This button will allow people who click on it to receive e-mail notifications whenever you publish a new post on your WordPress.com site.  So far it looks like it is working.  Why not click on the Follow Me button to your top right (just below my picture).

Blogging 101: What is your favourite thing about reading?

Mark Hanlon
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Blogging 101: What is your favourite thing about reading?

I fell upon a post yesterday that asks simply that question, “What is your favourite thing about reading?”  What is funny, is that we are supposed to link to the post, but for the life of me, I can’t seem t be able to track down the comment.  Never the less, I am proceeding with this rant and hopefully, the article in question will materialize. Our Blogging 101 assignment for today is “Respond to another post that builds on a comment you have left on another blog.  Don’t forget to provide a link back to the other site.”

I finally found the post — give it a read.

So with that in mind, today’s Blogging 101 topic:

Write a post that builds on one of the comments you left yesterday. Don’t forget to link to the other blog!

Why do we read?

Photo by andres chaparro from Pexels
Image: Women reading a book in a hammock. Source: Photo by andres chaparro from Pexels.

I asked my eight-year-old “What is his favourite thing about reading?” his response, “It helps me learn what to make in Minecraft and learn about animals”.  Regretfully, learning is probably why most of us read, and in many cases the only reason why they read.  If it was not through school; how much did we spend on university or college books; it is a manual for how to set up the new LED Television or Blue-Ray player, or in my case the past day, the tiny print in installation manual for my computers motherboard trying to diagnose an error, or the page or two of homework questions each night.   It is no wonder many children find reading a chore and at times a punishment. Then again – – my youngest is just learning to read, I mean, baby steps here — repetition, 4 or five 5 words sentences, “Here comes the red race-car, Here comes the blue race-car” yet, he is unbelievably proud of himself that he can read Daddy a story.  Maybe there is hope for reading for fun, reading for pleasure?

A Lost Reader

I admit I took a very long hiatus from reading which probably started the first day I arrived at university, a terrible habit I did not break without contempt until last years; I graduated in 2000.   It is incredible how quickly times flies when you look at it from that perspective, wow.  However, between additional schooling, dating, relationships, children, lawn work, career, the idea of reading never crossed my mind.  Well, at least reading for entertainment.  Today I can say I have found a balance.  I will never be a book a week person, as I enjoy to read each and every word written over speed reading vast chunks of a story just to move on to the next, however, I make the time for a great book, and always fight through mediocrity.  You can actually take a quick at the following page that highlights my recent reads (Recommended books for middle-aged me, from a middle-aged man). I am sure I have missed a few books, however, at quick glance, 30 books over the past two years.  Not a huge feat, however, at the same time, going from a handful of books a decade to more than a dozen in a year is an amazing start.

So what does Mark enjoy about reading?

Many of my days at work can be spent reading – it is incredible how quickly you can great through a 200-page report, digest its essence, critique its merits, and spit out a wish list of notes and changes.  However, when it comes to reading for myself – the tides do turn.  Whereby day, I read for a purpose, by night, I read for nothing more than the experience.  Much like a fine glass of wine, which we slowly savour, I too savour a great read and enjoy each word, comma and syllable.  I usually equate my reading speed to that of talking .. slow, steady, one word at a time.  I ravish in the story, in the adventure, in the “who done it?” – who has read Gone Girl?  Every story is a world in its own – we are touched, we laugh, we are engaged.  For a moment, we live through not the author’s eyes but, for a moment, the characters and the world that has been created for them – as readers this is our escape. Worlds that captivate us so deeply, it is hard to escape. How many times do we tell ourselves, only one more page, not wanting to put the book down?

I know what you are saying to yourself, “seriously Mark, sounds like you only read fiction, how unsophisticated is that!”, and I admit, I will jump at fiction before any other form of writing. However that being said, when the read has sparked my interest anything is game. One extremely interesting read of late was, “Detroit: An American Autopsy” by Charlie LeDuff. His recount of squaller of Detroit today is enough for me to want to make a road trip. The transformation of the city is simply more then I can get my mind around – and has to make you think.

So, for me, this is my favourite part about reading. Why do you read?

Blogging 101 – What can we learn through others?

Mark Hanlon
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Blogging 101 – What can we learn through others?
Cheers - Confessions
How often do you share your pain points with strangers?

One of the most powerful aspects of blogging is the interaction with our readers, their comments, their questions. How do you build a readership? Enjoy this blogging 101 post on “Building friendships, leave comments on at least four blogs you have not previously visited”. You never know what friendships you will build in this internet universe. Today I am writing about my history of building fantastic relationships with my internet friends and followers.

Building Internet Relationships

How can we be more open and honest with a perfect stranger then we can with our best friends?  How many times have you found yourself pulling out your deepest and darkest secrets or moments in your life to a near stranger, no wait, a perfect stranger?  Don’t worry, we all have.  Heck, we have been doing it long before the internet came around, and no, I am not referring to moments on your therapist couch.  Just ask yourself, “How many bartenders over the eons have heard a tale or two from you?”

One of the greatest benefits if the internet and in turn a scary reality, is its anonymity.  We can be whomever we want to be and we can slowly creep out of our shell and expose ourselves in ways we never would have dreamt of in “real life”.  We live adventures through online-gaming, build friendships with people in distant lands (a shout out to Maggie in Sydney who I have chatted with since 1998), talk for hours and debate the topic of the day, and share our worst fears or hurt on a daily basis.

Once Upon a Time, There Were Bulletin Board Systems (BBS)

Trade Wars 2002 (BBS Retro)
Trade Wars – One of the original MMOPGs back in the days of dial-up BBS systems.

I have been around the internet for a long time — probably even longer then some of the classmates in Blogging 101 have been alive — lets put it this way, Internet Explorer did not exist, nor did any other graphical interface we have come to adore, you had to use dial-up (yes, using your house telephone), and log into a Unix text-based account and fire up programs like Lynx to surf the internet — if I had to put a date out there, let’s say 20+ years, and before that Bulletin Board Systems (BBS).  What is interesting, is that from the first moment we could connect digitally – communicating amongst strangers has been a common theme, and has driven much of what we see today.  BBS Messages hopping between computers once or twice a day, to text-based chat rooms, the first MMORPGs such as TradeWars, popular applications like ICQ and Yahoo Messenger that allowed your to search for random people based on information in their profile, or location, more internet chat rooms, the desire to explore people has been as popular as exploring information, to tweeting our lives 150 characters at a time.   This topic alone could be a Blogging Series, but let’s move on.

The Evolution of Blogging

I look at Blogging as the latest evolution in our desire to reach out and touch the world. Blogging is an amazing forum to share our experiences, our life, and I admit, what I have really come to enjoy with my short time in the WordPress world.

WordPress is an amazing piece of software — which I have been using on www.makingyouthink.ca for a few years now.  However, I really used the Content Management features of WordPress over the Blogging and storytelling.  99% of my content was static pages over posts much like any other website, and when I did write a post, it was for a purpose — to speak about my a new technical crazy, or the merits of backing up your digital photographs, and rarely was it personal or opinionated.  Well not opinionated in a sense of exposing myself to the world.  😉

My second generation of Blogging has been much more personal than ever before, and hope that I have helped those that read my rants, as much as many of them have helped me,  by simply expressing my words, and thoughts.  If you want to know how it feels to prepare for a Colonoscopy, just give this post a read.

We write for countless reasons — for some, it is a form of confession, for others, much like myself, it is a way to help us organize our thoughts and ideas, from which to establish a game plan or next steps, and for all of us, it is a means to seek out that “virtual Bar Tender” and get a second opinion on life.

Today’s Blogging 101 lesson was to: Be a Good Neighbour: leave comments on at least four blogs that you’ve never commented on before.

Ever since our second assignment that pointed me to “Reader” I have been hooked with exploring everyone’s stories.  Truthfully I was a little embarrassed to admit that up until that moment I thought finding a good Blog to follow was similar to finding anything else on-line, attack Google or DuckDuckGo.  How wrong could I have been?

The reader is your portal to the estimate 60 million WordPress websites ¹ , wow, that is a lot of storytelling, and interesting enough where I have been finding myself exploring, many times a day.  To say I have enjoyed hearing peoples stories would be an understatement, many of which you can’t hold back and simply smile, while others, make your eyes swell up and the tears flow – simply give Goodbye Earl a read.  We are the most passionate when we are the most vulnerable.

We all share common topics, experiences, and interest, however, our views are as unique as our fingerprints.  All of us come from a different mould, our experiences, our upbringing, our convictions, all impact how we react, and what we take from the words we read, and as a result, our replies are as varied as our experiences.  And it is these experiences, and in ways, what we have learnt about ourselves and how to preserver and succeed through these experiences, both good and bad, is what we use to drive our replies, and in turn. take another experience with us.  I think I have read a few dozen blogs over the past week hoped my comments have helped everyone that has read them.

Although we are only into week two of our class, if learning how to find, read, and reply to our Blogging stores was all I take away from “Blogging 101”, I would be more the content with the course.  It is probably a good thing that there is not a way to go back and list everything I have written or commented to others over the past week, no matter the number of words, this desire to explore Reader is building more and more each day.   Even if 1% of what I write is taken to heart, the effort is worth the time, the moments reading, as enjoyable as the last, and stores as varied.

Keep up hitting publish as we are all here to read, reply and help out where we can.

Blogging 101 – Write an About Me Page – Exploring me and who Am I

Mark Hanlon
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Blogging 101 – Write an About Me Page – Exploring me and who Am I

Today’s assignment for our Blogging 101 course was to write an About Page.  Who is Mark, what is he all about, and most importantly, why the heck is he writing?  Like most of us, we have a reason that motivates us to put fingers to keyboard and through our heart to our words.

What makes for a killer about me page?

Looking to write an About Me page? Consider including some of the following on your new About Me page.

  • Your Sites Bio – what is your Blog about? Why should your visitors stop and read?
  • Who are you – why are you writing? What credibility do you have?
  • Where are you located – great for fans to know where you are. This may also helo with PR contacts.
  • Talk to your readers and tell a story –  keep your tone conversational and write in the first person. Tell them a story.

Who is Mark?

Over time, this may evolve, but so does life.  What is important today, may seem irrelevant five years from now — a birth, a death, illness, all influence us in many ways and through that our words.

  • It is interesting what molds us (My first computer – Commodore Vic-20)
  • Passions – far and wide.
  • Technology is still a big part of my life.
  • However, so is exploring the details of life on frame at a time.
  • We all have our demons – Diabetes and Crohn’s disease.
  • And what motivates us.

Feel free to explore my About Me Page and let me know what you think.  Was I personal enough, did I hold back?  What questions did you have that I could answer?

Enjoy!

-M

Blogging 101 – Try a new Theme. Don’t Judge a Book By its Cover

Mark Hanlon
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Blogging 101 – Try a new Theme. Don’t Judge a Book By its Cover

I plead to you, Don’t judge a book, or in our case a Blog by its cover!  Admit it, themes, themes, themes, this feels like the first day at High School, where how you look, dress, act, will brand you for the next four years.  As terrible as it may be, a theme could very much be the same.  As adults, we know better to judge a book by its cover, or the author by the Theme, but how quickly do we bounce from a site, it the content is chaotic? Today’s Blogging 101 lesson is about themes. Try out at least three other themes, even if you are happy with yours. You never know what you will find.

Going back even five years ago, having your own website was a simply a bit of a technical chore if you go back even further, website communities such as Geocities attempted to provide a website to everyone, however, the world of  HTML, CSS, Coding, and, ugg, design, always kept the www at arms length.  Thank you to the world of CMS (Content Management Systems) and the birth of platforms such as WordPress – and with them, dedicated people that are much more artistically, and creatively inclined than myself (the technical piece has always been easy), to create thousands of brilliant Theme designs that I can simply plop onto of my WordPress site and change our Theme  — INSTANT MAKEOVER!

The latest Blogging 101: Zero to Hero assignment:

Love your Theme:  try out at least three other themes — even if you’re happy with yours. Try one you’re drawn to, and one you’d never use.

So what is your Theme Personality?

Search, install, activate — and wow — you have a new Theme Personality.  Configure a few widgets and you have a shiny new blog as a home to your thousands of hours of words, stories and confessions.  Do you like a clean simple approach such as those offered by Twenty Ten to Twenty Fourteen (currently installed on my Blog), Chalkboard, a fun play on our life in school, or a “premium theme” such as those provided by companies such as “StudioPress“.   Before our fist Blogging 10 class, much like Back to School shopping, I raced around to give my Blog some new life.  I was looking for a theme that matched the following:

  • Clean, simple, and organized
  • Provided multiple areas to list posts by category
  • As responsive on a web browser as it was on a mobile phone
  • Flexible to allow me to personalize it as I wanted

So that folks was my Theme Personality, and the hunt was on!

What themes do I have installed?

A picture is always worth a few thousand words so here is a screen capture of my Theme directory……

The Power of Widgets and WordPress Plugins

A great theme is perfect – but what about our personality?  After all — two people can always go to the store and buy the same Shirt, Tie, Dress, Shoes — that is our theme — off the rack, coolness!  Now how do we add a bit of ourselves?  As I noted above, my Theme Personality needed to have a few places to talk to the world.  How to celebrate my moments that I put my “geek” on, how to celebrate, rant, complain about my “Crohn’s and Diabetes”, what posts to highlight my passion for photography (or how to highlight), and then there is “everything else”.  How can I ensure there isn’t any duplication in posts, and still capture everything possible?

I am not going to jump too deep into the Widgets and the power of Plugins today (after all, that may be another assignment), but what I am going to say, is that Widgets and the plugins we have installed are powerful, widgets are great, widgets and what we populate in them, make our blog come alive, help organize the chaotic world of our thoughts and ideas into an experience we enjoy opening to the world.

So what are your thoughts about my website ….

Our theme is a balance between our own taste and desires and helping navigate the universe of visitors to our site around.  Where can I improve my site, what did you like, what would you want to borrow?

Blogging 101 – Add something new to your post – Take life by the Horns

Mark Hanlon
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0
Blogging 101 – Add something new to your post – Take life by the Horns

Stand up and look around you?  What do you see?  For me, my first impressions of my hectic home office, are clutter and chaos, and hey, that may very well represent many of our lives – both in the obvious and the sublime.  But look further, through the chaos and ask yourself the same question?  Wait, its hard isn’t it? Todays Blogging 101 assignment is to publish a post for your readers and include a new to you element in it. Something that you have not included before, a photo, video,

Life is interesting, to say the least.  You blink, you may have missed an opportunity, you pause for what seems like a moment, and not only has a few hours past, but days, weeks, months, heck, even a year can race by.  Yet life can surprise you — unexpected and unbelievable moments like reading a Tweet that you won a monster of a Gaming Computer system (see my post here) while in the line at Starbucks and your heart racing for the next twelve hours as your Twitter account erupts with congratulatory most and kudos, or a compliment at just the right moment that makes you realize that, yes, there is more to life than this moment.  What we expect, rarely materializes, what we least expect — surprises us, and what is completely out of our control, scares us.

However, what do we expect from life?  For many of us, we grew up with that vision of the Cleaver (Leave it to Beaver) family – that perfect, not so perfect, typical, North American family.  Family, children, white picket fence, wait, we are talking generation’s X, Y, and Z here, or not so white picket, condo, childless, world adventurer.  No matter what your fantasy life is, or how successful you have been at achieving your vision of “success”, how do we react when the world grabs you by the ankle and gives you a shake, is critical.    Wait — to be clear, I am not talking a little shake, how are you doing, or poke in the shoulder, but a whirlwind of … well, simple life, that makes; no matter on what side of the fence your metaphorical or spiritual beliefs fall; to look straight up into the sky, and plead “Whuzzat?! Hello, universe? It’s me, Mark!  What the #$%^!” ¹

So here we are, back staring at our chaos.  Now ask yourself again, what do you see?  I know — I have set you up for failure, haven’t I?   The truth of the matter is that — we have little or no control over life; was it a choice that my pancreas decided to semi-retire or my immune system begin to duke it out with my intentional track (I have type-2 diabetes and Crohn’s disease) and as little control over the choices others around us make.  However, what we can control is how we respond to the chaos.  Are we Teflon or that icky sticky stuff those fly traps you see hanging from the ceiling are made from?  Now ask yourself, what do you see? But before you do … This visual quote is always inspirational.

For me – life has been a challenge.  Not just yesterday, or the past year or four, but life.  What is interesting, is that when you stand back for just a moment and push through through the chaos, it is interesting how much we can learn about ourselves, about life, about the world.  This may not change the chaos around us, this may not change that witch of a neighbour or the yappy dog that keeps you up at night, but what it can do is change your perception, change how you respond, react, engage.  No matter where you are in life, every moment is a building block to the next, so let’s not react, but embrace each moment, and build on those experiences, after all, the universe has  a lot to teach us, however, for most of us, the chaos around is deafening.

So stand up and look around one last time?  What do you see?

A little note:  This article was inspired by our Blogging 101 class. The truth is, what can I put in here?  I suppose I could scour the internet for some video that may or may not fit or simply … ask you to take a moment and pause .. look … listen … and listen to the chaos around us.

¹

from the Douglas Coupland novel, “”  A hilarious funny novel, that made me an instant fan of Coupland.  Read the first five pages and you to will be hooked.

Blogging 101 – Creating your first Post – Hello World

Mark Hanlon
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Blogging 101 – Creating your first Post – Hello World
Picture of Me, Mark Hanlon. Blogger, Diabetic, Runner, Cyclist, Crohn’s Fighter, Father (Arrowhead Provincial Park)

I admit I have had a Blog, or WebLog, for a while now, yet, has it been time, passion, devotion, or a combination of all of the above, that I have not written as often as you had planned when you first envisioned your blog.  When the WordPress Blogging University was starting a new series if their Blogging101 classes this week, I thought, what a great time refresh my Blog with a new theme,  polish my Blogging skills, learn a few new tips and tricks and if nothing else, meet a few new and interesting people. Todays Blogging 101 assignment, introduce yourself using a blog post. Try out the Media section and upload a picture or two.

So Who am I?

My name is Mark and I live near Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  If you asked anyone that thinks they know me, family members include, what I do for a living, they would reply “something computer-related”, which is a half-truth, the other half is that I am an urban planner.  Although around here I try to be a little more rounded in my attitude towards life and have labelled myself as an “A foodie in training, a budding photographer, Starbucks addict, and a dad”. 

On a darker side, and lurking deep into my soul, and a source for some of my Blogging stories is that I suffer from Crohn’s Disease and Type-2 Diabetes, so on occasion, my blog helps me rant on a life taking medications, tests, and procedures. For a bit longer of a profile, check out my About Me page.

What will you expect and What I Hope to Gain?

Crazy me has signed up for Blogging 101 and Writing 101 so let us see if I can keep on top of two assignments a day?  What do I hope to gain from this course, for starters, a better understanding of Blogging best practices?  How do we build a readership? What interest in people?  Am I actually Interesting?  More importantly, how will my commitment here improve other aspects of life.  Writing is a skill, and with all skills, with practice, will improve.  With some luck, those reports at the office will flow that much easier.  So with that in mind, let me bid you are farewell while I go and explore what resources are available.

Humm … that raises a good question, “How long is a typical Blog Post?”

5 Ways to Keep your Mobile Devices and Personal Information Secure

Mark Hanlon
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5 Ways to Keep your Mobile Devices and Personal Information Secure

Smartphones and tablets are so much a part of everyday life, it’s easy to forget that they can contain an incredible wealth of information about you. A recent study by security software company Symantec1 showed that over 50% of people who found a smartphone tried to return them to their rightful owners – but 96% of people snooped through the device for personal information. Follow these 5 simple ways to keep your mobile devices and personal information secure.

89%

tried to access personal apps or data

72%

tried to access private photos

60%

tried to access social networking and personal email

57%

accessed a “Saved Passwords” file

43%

tried to access an online banking app

A few simple steps can keep your personal information secure, even when your mobile device is out of reach.

Lock your screen with a password

Keep your personal information from being just a finger swipe away. Industry studies show that 30% to 60% of people don’t lock their smartphones, even though almost all smartphones and tablets allow you to password-protect your device. Set up your device with a password that can’t be easily guessed. You may also want to consider putting your contact information on your lock screen, so if you lose your device, whoever finds it will be able to get in touch with you.

Keep track of your devices

If you’ve ever misplaced your keys, the remote control, or your glasses, you’ll appreciate how easy it is to find your smartphone or tablet with a location app. Find My Phone, Find My iPhone, BlackBerry Protect and similar apps can help you locate your device by showing you the location through a website and having your device emit a sound. Many of these apps will also allow you to remotely lock your device or even wipe all of your personal information. But remember – almost all location apps need to be set up before you misplace your device.

Download apps only from trusted sources

Every time you install and App, you are giving the developer the ability to peer into your phone.  Ensure you download and install your apps from reputable companies and through the  iTunes, Google Play and BlackBerry World. When you download apps from anywhere else, you may be exposing your device to a higher risk of getting viruses and malware. This threat is growing every year – in one year, the volume of mobile malware has grown by 167%.2

Update your devices and apps regularly

When programmers find security flaws, companies will close these gaps by providing updates. Keeping your device’s apps and OS up-to-date only takes a few minutes, plus it ensures you’re getting the benefits of using the most up-to-date technology.

Be careful with public wifi.

When you want to check the news or weather, public wifi can be a great way to access the Internet without using up your data plan. However, the information that travels on public wifi may not be private. For this reason, many experts recommend avoiding using a public hotspot for anything that you want to keep private or anything that requires a password.

These are just a few ways you can protect the data on your mobile devices. The smartest move you can make is to be aware of the data that is on your smartphone or tablet, and to treat mobile devices with the same level of vigilance you’d use for protecting your most personal information.

1 Report: The Symantec Smartphone Honey Stick Project
2 McAfee Labs Threats Report, June 2014

This article was originally  published by Canada Post at: http://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/emailcampaigns/epost/newsletter_2014_sept_en.html?b=76419

AMD Radeon R9 285 GPU | Powerful Video Graphics

Mark Hanlon
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AMD Radeon R9 285 GPU | Powerful Video Graphics

For anyone that “really” knows me, computers and technology have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.   Hours of transposing, character after character of code, grade eight science fair projects on computer animation, to Bulletin Boards Systems (BBMing) and some of the original MMORPG gaming such as Trade Wars,  or my first UNIX based internet account (good old Lynx and fighting for a dialup connection), it is no wonder I co-signed a bank loan to upgrade my computer at the age of 15   From my roots with a Commodore Vic-20, Tandy Coco and Coco 2, through to my first DOS-based computer with the Tandy 1000 EX (Intel x86).  The world of personal computers has changed a lot since 1981 and the Vic-20’s f 5 KB of RAM, a whopping 16 colours and 160×160 pixels resolution (25,600 pixels).

Today, I am equally as amazed by computers and technology, and even more amazed by our digital world. Twitter, Facebook, Google+, we are all virtually connected, even movies such as Chef starring Jon Favreau goes to show the power of Twitter; the power of trending, and the inter-connectedness,  and more significantly how instantaneous and reactionary the world has become.

A Museum of Technology

I think every techie has a rubber maid, or two, of used computer parts and electronic gadgets.  I was looking for a spare SATA cable the other day and coincidently, I pulled out a retired ATI (AMD) Rage 128 video card (circa 1995-1999), and supporting infinite jump in processing power from my Vic-20 days, offering a dedicated 16 MB SDRAM.  My how technology leapfrogs – who here remembers Pong?

AMD R9 285 Graphics Card

AMD r9 285 Graphics Card

In celebration of AMD’s 30th Birthday, the CPU and GPU legend recently launched its Radeon R9 285 performance-segment graphics card during an August 23, 2014 press event.  To view the event, check out AMD’s YouTube Channel.  Receiving rave reviews across the internet, the new R9 285 and available across all AMD’s partners including Asus, Gigabyte, and Sapphire, and will become a force to reckon with in the graphics card market.  What was even more incredible was the price point, at an unbelievable $249, the R9 285 features 1792 stream processors, 2GB of GDDR5 memory and runs on a 256-bit memory bus designed to knock Nvidia’s GTX 760 off its feet, and allow gamers to play PC games at maximum detail better than any card in its class.

Packed with AMD’s lineup of features, the Radeon R9 285 graphics card is noted to be loaded with the latest technologies AMD has to offer from Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture, including mixed screen resolution for AMD Eyefinity technology (up to 5 screens) and support for DirectX®12, and AMD’s groundbreaking Mantle API.

A small step away from the Commodore Vic-20

Remember the Vic-20?  Putting processing power aside, and consider memory alone how does the 5 kB (of which 1.2 kB was for the operating system and processing) of the Vic-20 stand up in comparison?  Even if the processing power of computers today was equatable, imagine processing 400,000 times more information at one time then the Vic-20?

Video CardRAM (kB)
or in other words ...
Vic-20 (CPU and GPU)
5
0.005 MB
ATI Rage 128
16,384
16 MB
AMD R9 285
2,097,152
2 GB

The Gaming Rig and the Big Win

AMD Gaming Rig
My winning gaming rig. Thank you AMD!

To celebrate AMD’s 30th birthday and the new R9 285 series of video cards John Byrne, Senior Vice President and Chief Sales Officer at AMD announced he would be giving away his Personal Gaming PC to a deserving Ultimate AMD Fan.  In addition to being AMD red, the rig shown to the side featured:

  • AMD FX 9590 CPU (4.7 GHz; Octa core)
  • 16 GB AMD Radeon Memory
  • 2 X AMD R9 285 Graphics Cards

Truthfully a dream setup for any AMD fan.  So what was the catch?  Well, as simple as tweeting to John Byrne why you thought you were the ultimate AMD fan to win, what was touted as his personal computer. The system looked even more impressive on an incredible three-screen, mixed resolution Eyefinity stretching across 8560 X 1440 pixel resolution or over 12 million pixels.

So why does one deserve to win a new AMD gaming rig?   What makes you the ultimate AMD fan? Are you an ultimate gamer?  Think RED, is a kick-ass colour?  Or, are you simply self entitle enough to think, you simply “deserve” to win?  For me, it has to do with history.  From my first custom build, and every component upgrade in-between, whether it was the ATI Rage 128, AMD Athlon A7 processor, to my countless Radeon cards, and AMD CPU’s, All in Wonder graphic cards, and even my ATI TV Wonder Cards, an AMD CPU or GPU has powered every custom-built PC I have pulled together over the last 22 years.  So off my tweet went, and I waited ……..

Every Contest has a Winner

I admit my twitter feed is relatively quiet — I tweet when I am inspired, and follow those that are worthy.  However this afternoon at around, 4:45 PM EST I noticed that I had a Twitter notification.  Humm ….. what random person followed me today?  So this is where I come full circle to my rant about how instantaneous and reactionary the world has become.  That tweet I mentioned at 4:45?  Well it was from no other then @JohnByrneCSO, who wrote the following :

“Congratulations to @Mark_Hanlon who is the lucky winner!  We appreciate your loyalty.”

Wow, wait, did I say wow?  Truthfully, the nervous,  kid on Christmas morning, excitement has passed, however, the idea of winning still seems a little surreal, even a few hours later.  However, what was equally as incredible was the snowball, of tweets, forwards, mentions, and favourites that have flooded in since Mr. Byrnes tweeted this afternoon.  I admit, nothing as viral as #IceBucketChallenges, yet I am very appreciative to the countless words of kudos and congratulations for my incredible win, so with that, I will finally hit send on this crazy post.  However, before I go, I once again wanted to thank for this incredible prize that awaits me, and to which I tweeted:

@JohnByrneCSO #WOW – I admit I am near speechless, super stoked, and completely excited.  Thank you to @AMD30Live!”

The infamous question of "Why?"

Mark Hanlon
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The infamous question of "Why?"
Why is the world Round?
Asking “why?” makes us think!

Originating from Old English hwī, hwȳ ‘by what cause’, instrumental case of hwæt ‘what’, of Germanic origin, the Oxford Dictionary defines the word “why” as: for what reason or purpose.

Why is a question that has intrigued us from the moment we could reason, could think, could communicate. How often have you heard a three-year-old ask, “WHY is the sky blue”, “WHY do I need to go to bed”, “WHY does daddy need to take medicine every day, is he sick”, “WHY do I need to brush my teeth” progressing to “WHY are there ‘monsters’ in my mouth (plaque)? If there were no monsters, I would not need to brush my teeth”. The question of WHY surrounds us.

As we grew older, we questioned, “WHY is he bullying me”, “WHY am I always picked last for the team at recess.”, “WHY is the teacher always so mean to me (after all the world revolves around us and we do not see the teacher being equally as tough on everyone else), “WHY does daddy need to take medicine every day, will I need to take medicine every day too, when I grown up?”, “WHY did she love me today, and dating Johnny tomorrow?”, “Why is the sky blue?” Why is one of those questions that have haunted us, and will continue to haunt and intrigue our imagination, curiosity, and need to know and learn until the day we die?

As adults, our question of why becomes more profound and more troubling, more serious, framed around love, or careers, emotion. Questions of WHY, “WHY do I hate my job” (I actually love my job just for the record), “WHY do people not hang up the towel after their shower”, “WHY is my pint of beer never filled to that ‘official’ line”, “WHY does it rain every time you set up a campsite, and again when you are taking it down”, “WHY do we keep making the same mistakes in life”, “WHY does she love me”, “WHY do I need to experience the joys of Crohns and diabetes and take medication every day”, “WHY did he or she get the promotion over me”, and truthfully, “WHY is the sky blue”. After all, it is the three-year-old hanging off of our ankles, that insists on an answer through a “Daddy, why? Daddy why? Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, *tugg* *tugg*, DADDDDDDDY”, that reminds us that we never quite figured out the answer to that question.

So Why is the Sky Blue?

Wawa, Ontario – Photo By Mark Hanlon (C)

Sunlight is made up of all the colours of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The gas molecules in the atmosphere interact with the sunlight before the light reaches our eyes.

The gas molecules in the atmosphere scatter the higher-energy (high frequency) blue portion of the sunlight more than they scatter the lower-energy red portion of the sunlight (this is called Rayleigh scattering, named for the physicist Lord John Rayleigh). The Sun appears reddish-yellow and the sky surrounding the Sun is coloured by the scattered blue waves.

When the Sun is lower in the horizon (near sunrise or sunset), the sunlight must travel through a greater thickness of atmosphere than it does when it is overhead, and even more, light is scattered (not just blue, but also green, yellow, and orange) before the light reaches your eyes. This makes the sun look much redder. (http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/planets/earth/Skyblue.shtml)

Pondering the Question of Why?

So why ask the question at all? The truth is, I was driving home tonight from work and you being to shake your head at yourself, your choices, I suppose, simply, your life. Why did we turn left, choose glasses over contacts, have a sweet with your coffee, give a good friend a second, third, fourth, fiftieth chance? Why do we make the decisions we do? Is the answer as simply as….. (you know what I am going to say) …. “because?” Maybe life is not so complicated after all, maybe if you explore all of the simple why’s in life, answering the more difficult ones becomes easier? Just maybe? So what do we have to loose? If nothing else, it is an exploration into the question of “WHY”.

So feel free to jump in and give it your two cents…..

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