RKNet Blog... Thing

My awesome Lorem Ipsum shirt provided by TeeFury, makers of fine, rare designer tshirts.

First off, it was great to see everybody again! I had missed the last two Media Makers events and kicked myself pretty hard both times. Thanks to my cat and the fact that I have a memory like a (rusted) steel trap, I was able to make it out to Newmarket in time to schmooze a little before everything got started.

Everybody is really busy! I took some general notes on each person and everybody had something fun or interesting to share.

UnclePhilms -

• Talked about film projects he’s working on, stuff in conjunction with NewtonStudios.com and BostonFilms.com (bostonfilms.com links to a weird page about internet connection sharing??) - Zerk.tv
• Mentioned that he is scoring a film (horror film I think it was).

Bryan White of Cinema Suicide -

• Launched Soundtrack Apocalisse, featuring soundtrack reviews. Apocalisse is Italian for apocalypse! Neat!
• He’s got tshirts for Cinema Suicide now! They’re really cool looking, done in fake movie poster style, with Cinema Suicide’s URL on them. Go get one now so you can say you were in at the ground floor.
• Quoted by Ghost Adventures, who will soon be putting out a DVD (which may or may not contain some of those CS group quotes). (Correct me if I’m citing the wrong Ghost Adventures group.)
• He mentioned gearing up to do a documentary about the less-than-savory history of Portsmouth, NH and doing some paranormal investigation to coincide with the area. Talked about a lot of really interesting history surrounding Portsmouth. Things I’d never heard before like all the old aqueduct work that has survived, and the old tunnels under the city surviving from old military installations. It sounds like there are a lot of really fascinating subjects he could cover in a Portsmouth documentary and I look forward to hearing way more about it.
• Cinema Suicide got covered by local entertainment paper: The Wire. The story is mentioned on the front page, so if you see a copy, go grab it!

Newcomers! Rob Jaques and Shawn Lampron.

• Rob is a writer, a musician and photographer. He’s got a pretty awesome flickr profile at santaplausible (which is a name I just absolutely love, by the way). He’s looking to collaborate and learn more about cool stuff to do on the internet.
• Shawn is a writer and I believe he said he’s also done some teaching. He’s interested in getting involved in more media and web-based projects.

Chris Clark of GeekForceFive -

• He’s got a book out! Congratulations! It’s called Those Little Bastards and it is available for sale through echristopherclark.com.
• Over at GeekForceFive, he experimented with adding a Question of the Day to a video post he did regarding his recent NIN concert experience. This got some of the best feedback he’s seen yet, and he is considering making Question of the Day a regular feature on GFF. Sounds like a terrific idea and I hope he keeps us posted!
• He’s also forging a community area for GFF at geekforcefive.ning.com - ning.com being a resource for people who want to take a sort of plug-and-play approach to social networking/community sites.

Leslie Poston -

• She’s doing some authoring over at TechnoSailor.com, a tech, business, and new media site.
• Got BIG plans for the upcoming SXSW, trying to get a panel together on “Can social media save the world?” and is looking for support to get this exciting concept off the launchpad and into the conference. The idea behind this panel was inspired by her recent experiences at PodCamp Boston.
• Got a site going called UptownUncorked.com, which has a neat wine glass shape going on with the first U that I think is really neat and would totally like to see develop more as a concept.
• Recently attended a Mashable event in Boston. Also mentioned that she’s a frequent attendee of Boston. Any Media Maker folks who are interested in Boston events should probably contact her for info on carpooling and so forth.
• She’s working with a site called Blorge.com who is also doing some hiring right now.

Deb Mcnally -

• I finally got to meet @debdebtig! I’ve been following her for a while on Twitter because she’s a locally active person. It’s nice to be able to put a face to a name like that.
• Deb is a tech communicator (all types of media, not just writing), as well as a local farmer!
• She’s got nheggs.blogspot.com and will be branching that out to include an official site (NHeggs.com) as well as adding some web service profiles for her chickens, giving people a day-in-the-life look into what it’s like to be a hen on the farm.
• Anecdotally - Back-in-the-day, her husband ran the largest BBS in southern New Hampshire! How cool is that? I myself didn’t spend much time on the internet during the BBS days, I spent more time trying to stay up late playing Shining Force on the Sega channel without getting caught. :3

Nick Plante aka ZapNap -

• He’s also written a book! It’s called Practical Rails Plugins and it’s currently available for pre-order on Amazon. It’s pretty exciting to have published authors in our midst.
• For anyone who doesn’t know, Nick is a freelance developer, working primarily with Ruby on Rails, but is awesome enough to provide services above and beyond that as duty calls.
• He’s also been involved with a zine called ink19, which as I understand it started life as a paper zine and has since evolved some digital tentacles to better propel itself through the cultural miasma that is the internet. The primary focus of ink19 is music, but they cover other fun stuff like movies, television and various other exciting whatnots.
• Nick has a dream! A dream in which it is much easier for people to read and distribute webcomics. That’s a really awesome dream. One which we can probably all get behind.
• Sub-question: Should we do a group event to brainstorm all the possible features and needs of a webcomic reader/distro system? Could be a really entertaining and worthwhile project, and could ultimately unseat things like WordPress when it comes to web comic creation and distribution! (and how boss monster would that be? pfft. very.)

Brian Turnbull -

• Another newcomer, and recent transplant from Chi-town (Chicago). He’s a professional photographer and has recently collaborated with ZapNap.
• Brian and Nick worked with a client to very recently launch Razume.com, a site in which people can have their resumes reviewed by their peers (and probably also by hiring professionals!).
• He took photos of this month’s NHMM which are already up. Why do I always get caught making the most awkward faces?!
• He’s done some photography work for various big band jazz groups, including album art for the Stone/Bratt Big Band.

John Herman -

• Gravityland season two is in the works! More people are getting interested in the project, so the second season could get really intense.
• He’s also working away on a pilot for an HD webisodic show called Thomas in Wonkyland. The premise came about at an improv event a while back, and some of those same players are coming back to work on this concept. It sounds absolutely hilarious and I can’t wait to see it!
• John recently helped his wife make a 1 minute movie for a film festival called le 60, a bunch of 1 minute movies to be shown in Boston in mid-September. He shared with us a really inspiring story about how he contacted a musician in Germany that he really admired, and was able to get some unique music for the project from that communication. Very cool. Incidentally: le 60 is accepting submissions through August 15th, so there is still time to participate in this project/contest.

Jill Silos -

• Jill is an author and cultural historian who works with grad students at UNH, as well as other local college-level students in the area.
• She is working on a book called Everybody Get Together: The Politics of the Counterculture. The book in project form won an award back in 2005, and I think it’s safe to say everyone in the group was very interested in the finished product when it’s ready for release.
• She’s learning to play guitar and apparently does a pretty mean D minor, but is still looking for tips on how to transition between chords.

As for myself, I talked a little bit about exciting new developments at work, and a few of my ideas for RKNet.

• RKNet will be featuring content from paid bloggers. I am still taking inquiries about this, although I have had several interested parties contact me already. Email giania [at] gmail.com if you wish to get more info about the program.
• The purpose of the paid blogging program is to free me up to do the following: redo the RKNet template, develop really cool merch ideas, strengthen affiliate relations. Eventually I want RKNet to be something like boingboing without the awkward lesbian “unpublishing” drama. Baby steps.
• Chris had a really terrific merchandise idea for RKNet, develop “random kitty” plush toys, literal random kitties, probably small batch or one-off items to keep things interesting, and cement their status as collectors items.
• I talked briefly about an idea I had to create a site to specialize in supporting local farmers and local farmers’ markets by providing a centralized site catering to their needs. Deb let me know that in her experience it’s actually pretty difficult to keep up with the normal demand, much less deal with greater exposure. I’d love to work with some people on this concept, to come up with a variety of ideas on how a site like this could help the most people, and maybe make some money.
• Some things I neglected to mention:
• I’ve got a soup! giania.soup.io it’s a kind of micro-blogging, tumblr sort of service. It’s lots of fun and allows for quick sharing of some of your favorite (or least favorite) items on the internet.
• I attended the Boston-based An Event Apart conference. I have transcribed some of my notes, but there’s still a lot left to put up. Stay tuned.
• I mentioned a friend’s ninja doll project but forgot the URL ( ninja-dolls.com DUH), also posted the URL in the comments at the NH Media Makers blog.
• As mentioned gingerly so as not to offend the nice people at Crackskulls, I am a HUGE fan of Dover’s newest coffee shop, Adelle’s. As we get more people at NH MM, we may run out of room at Crackskulls. I spoke briefly with one of the people who works at Adelle’s and it sounds like they might be interested in hosting an event like ours. I believe they have wifi there, and I’m working on getting them their own website so news/events can be posted there also. I’m really dying to try one of their bacon cheddar scones.

Don’t forget to visit the official NH Media Makers blog and check out all the notes John put up, as well as all the comments and follwups from the attendees!

The network administrator is one of the funniest, most dedicated, generally awesome guys I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet. This morning I got copied on an email he sent to one of my co-workers regarding a rather unfortunate circumstance: a client of his was one of those people who gets a chain letter and forwards it to EVERYONE in their address book. This naturally included my co-worker, and the presence of giant attachments, unwanted witticisms and lots and lots of animated gifs was really starting to cramp the guy’s style.

Network Admin to the rescue! Below, with some redacted names to protect identities (because I try to be polite like that) is the solution.

Hey Todd,

I can block his e-mail address from hitting our server, but unfortunately he wouldn’t be able to send any e-mail to us at all if that happened-/probably/ not a good idea if he’s a client.

You can delete them, but the best thing to do is to ask him to stop sending them in the first place. The easiest way to do that is to make **ME** the bad guy, so the fucking idiot doesn’t get all offended and shit. Try something like this:

/”Good morning Mr. Latent Pedophile,

I can’t put into words how much sheer, unadulterated joy your wonderful e-mails have brought me. You see, before I starting receiving your witty and carefully crafted mass-produced chain e-mails my life was but a meaningless shell. Being on your “send” list has truly been a divine gift from above. Not only has it made me a better man, but flowers smell better, the sky is brighter, and food tastes better.

Best of all, it no longer hurts when I pee.

Alas, there is a problem: You see, the network administrator here is a real “type-A” knuckle-dragger. He’s an angry, angry man-the type of guy who has driven away anyone who has ever tried to love him. He is verbally abusive to his co-workers, and his breath is so bad that the paint around his desk *is actually peeling. *He monitors all of the network traffic to and from our e-mail server. Yesterday he waddled over to my desk, belched, farted in my general direction, and //then started screaming at me about bandwidth issues and security concerns. For this reason I must beseech you to stop sending me these types of messages. He assured me that if I receive any more he was going to dock my pay $10.00 per megabyte-so you’re most recent message for example could cost me $13.20.

I’m not sure how I’m going to cope with not receiving future chain letter messages from you. Alas, I may have to take up clown punching, chicken choking-or some other constructive way to vent my inhuman rage against the man. Thank you for your understanding.

I weep alone,

Todd T.
Resident Badass
“/

Give that a shot dude. Let me know how it works out.
*
**
Chris
*

Oh Chris, it is truly an honor to work with you!

Well, I’m just back from the first ever NH Media Makers get together. What a terrific idea, and what a great turn out. I honestly didn’t know what to expect, both in people or content, despite the post at the actual NH Media Makers site detailing who would be there and what to expect!

We had all types of people, with different disciplines, but the major unifying factor was our passion for all things internet. Which is extremely refreshing as a majority of people I’ve met here in New Hampshire have not been the slightest bit interested in the internet or tech in general. It was like a high school AV meeting with a million times more class.

After adamantly sucking down as much coffee as possible, I tuned in to each attendee’s introduction and background. Everybody had a great story to tell and a variety of really terrific projects they were involved in too. I don’t think a single person there had just one thing they were working on, interested in, or knew about. There was no shortage of great ideas, and everybody seemed tremendously passionate about their field of interest.

We had photographers, videographers, writers, entrepreneurs, search engine marketers, programmers, culture geeks, and often times most people were several of those things if not all of them! Had I been taking notes I’d have a lot more details about each person. Everybody I met was just terrific. There was a definite buzz in the air and I could tell a lot of really valuable connections were made. Separately we’ve got a ton of super ideas and talents, together we could really turn this area into a hub of internet and cultural activity.

Couple of points I want to shout out to any local readers:

• One of the attendees is a film maker out in Manchester who will be looking for extras interested in dying. :)
• Another wants to get interest up in late night monster movie showings in the area, preferably big screen. Who knows about theater in the area?
• We’ve got film folks who might want extras, guest writers, feedback, or musical contributions/suggestions.
• There are authors chomping at the bit for publishing tips or inspiration in general.
• There’s me, looking for blog authors and people interested in helping my wacky friends commit some of their film ideas to the web.
• There’s a niche marketer looking for ideas and feedback on how to incorporate things like video and blogs into his repertoire to strengthen his position as the top in his field(s).

And so much more. I’m hoping others took better notes. There will be a mailing list, and notes and attendee URLs will be posted over at the NH Media Makers site, so stay tuned. We’ll also have some pictures and video courtesy of a few folks who were there. (Phil, John, and Roger if I remember correctly.) There will be more of these in the future, so if you missed the first one, fret not, you will have a chance to join in the fun!

Today I put a click mapping app on RandomKitty.net. It will give me “heat maps” of where people click when they are on the main page of the blog. I may add it elsewhere, but the home page needs an overhaul before I do that. If you’d like to view the current heat map of RKNet, go to http://www.randomkitty.net/clickheat and log in with the username and password of “checkit” (no quotes obviously). You’ll have to look at the whole week or the whole month to really get any data, and most of that was me clicking random areas to generate data that I could view to test my installation. I look forward to getting a little eye-tracking information for the site. I’ve been doing a lot of usability reading lately and I know that observing the patterns of people who visit your site is a great way to learn how to cater to them in a more educated fashion. (Or I could just ask: how do you like the site? Is it easy to use? Entertaining? I love feedback, good or bad.)

I also signed up for a Twitter app that will now auto-feed the new posts to the RKNet twitter account. I’m hoping that it will spread the news a little more effectively, maybe get a couple more people on the proper RSS, so they can tell me the Twitter update is annoying and can I please turn that off? I’ve also collected a lot of unique and bizzare followers on Twitter here lately, although I did end up following zefrank, and I even participated in a project to tell really short bedtime stories. (There are some really sweet ones in there.) I’m contemplating signing up for a reverse item, that will post my tweets to the blog, but that could be pretty blah if it’s just me. It would be way more fun if the other writers also posted their tweets.

I just got turned down for displaying Project Wonderful ads, but I’m not down about it. It’s just inspiration to really clean up the home page, get some content squeezed out of the fascinatingly weird group I hang out with, and resubmit. Besides, setting up a PW account was an important step for me. Not so I can subject you the viewer to ads here, but so I can eventually promote RKNet and monetarily support sites that I visit and enjoy at the same time! Win win. Besides, I am in the process of setting up another app that will hopefully drive some more traffic, maybe provide you the gentle readers with some links to other fun internet items (as if you need anything else but RKNet! PFFT!), and perhaps even drag in a little cash for yours truly. Mmm… delicious petty cash.

Speaking of del.icio.us, I finally figured out how to get a feed of links put up by people in my network. It’s like a whole world opened up. I suddenly understand the social value of the site with stunning clarity, and I have to say I’m networked with some folks that have great taste in linking.

The more I experiment with the various services, apps, and information sources that are out there, the more fun I have. It may not all be terribly productive, but most of it does provide me with opportunities to meet new people and learn new things, and I think that’s pretty valuable, don’t you?

Let it never be said that Twitter is a useless web app. Thanks to Twitter friend doshdosh, I’ve discovered an article which may assist me in refining my goals for this website, such as they are, and increase readership and hopefully feedback as well.

The article on problogger.net is titled From 0 to 2000+ Subscribers in 120 Days. The guest author, Tina Su, writes a blog called Think Simple Now and her passion is helping people improve their lives. The article details the steps she took to make her website successful, and they are all very positive, realistic and easy to remember.

With the assistance of this well written guide, I would like to take this blog, this site, this project and really turn it into something worth visiting, bookmarking, and subscribing to within the next 120 days. I have touched upon this goal before a few months ago but never really followed up. It’s one of the challenges with A) not having concrete goals and B) maintaining a more than full time job.

Hopefully with the help of some of my other authors, and friends who desire to do creative things and use the web for distribution, this site can become a bustling hub of super fun times for all who pass by! Won’t you tag along? It will be quite the wild ride.

Woe and sadness unto you, cubicle drone. An entire blog dedicated to snapshots of tons of different companies. Mainly young, hip, internet-based companies on top of it.

Take a good look around you. Do a quick inventory of your surroundings.
Do they include any or all of the following:

1. A full wall, hand-painted mural
2. Some manner of arcade cabinet or gaming table
3. “Alternative” or mainly ergonomic furniture
4. Pets, not counting fish, rocks, or plants
5. As-yet-to-be-finished sections, or furniture that is not yet assembled
6. A large colorful logo that isn’t your neighbor’s favorite sports team banner

If you said “no” to all of the following, it is entirely possible that you work for a stuffy, old-school, dead-end company. If this is a concern, it is highly advisable that your reorganize your life goals and hop to it. That house in Bali won’t build itself, bucko.

That said, go check out some of these pictures, seriously. If that doesn’t inspire you to improve your work life, what will?

Did it ever occur to you that I might work from home?


I’m cancelling the minute I find a viable alternative. In the meantime? I’ll be checking this out.

Imagine all the people you know, not as people, but as collections of information, like wikipedia articles of their own lives. Written on what they’ve done and where they’ve been and who they know by everyone else in the world, and constantly updating as their life goes on and more events occur. Now that you’ve quantified this person, it’s easier to detach yourself from the concept that this face is this person, it’s easier to start drawing lines between people, easier to make predictions about the future when it’s all simple facts and figures. The concept of prophecy makes so much more sense when you detach the humanity from the human.

There was so much more to my dreams, but quite frankly I just don’t remember them. I forced myself to remember that, although the details aren’t quite all there from last night. That’s what I get for not just getting up and writing it down right then. I was, however, worried that since I had gone to bed so early I would just go ahead and wake up too much to get back to bed. Starting the day at 2am is a little too early bird for the likes of me.

Hey kids! In conjunction with my desire to generate more user feedback here at the RKNet, I wish to take a moment to voice my support for The Great Mofo Delurk 2007.

Don’t get me wrong, I love me some RSS. It allows me to read far more interesting articles per day than visiting individual blogs ever could. Yet without feedback and conversation, there’s nothing to separate someone’s blog from some kind of diary or masturbatory pontification. (Not that there aren’t some elements of both in a lot of blogs anyway, this one included.)

So let us all take a moment to break out from the comfort of our cozy feed readers, visit some of our favorite blogs, and let those jerks people know just how we feel! If there’s nothing recent that really inspires you, go back to old entries that got you really fired up and sound off. Stumble your way through tags and categories and find things that really pique your interests and speak away! Share your favorite entries with friends and get them to comment, too.

We the authors know you’re out there, and we love hearing from you. It lets us know we’re doing our job: entertaining, informing, and/or inspiring*. (*Trolling is a form of inspiration too!) Gentle readers, we love you! Share the love and leave a comment.

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