Category Archives: Technology and Social Media

Anything with wires; Facebook, Twitter, blogging, chatting, phones and such.

September 20, 2011 · 8:35 am

Size matters

When the alarm sounded this morning, there were visions of lumens dancing in my head.

It was obvious that I hadn’t adequately cleared my cranium following yesterday’s marathon search for a new portable LCD projector. After hitting six stores, I came home empty-handed and light-headed.

You see, I have immediate need for a teeny-weeny portable projector to show presentations around the country. The most striking lesson I learned is that one man’s portable is another man’s albatross.

1000-lumen bulb

You might already know all this, but here’s what else I’ve learned:

  1. It’s all about the lumens. For the unenlightened, a lumen is a unit of luminous flux, or brightness. The more lumens the better. Any fewer than 1,000 is considered impotent.

  2. The challenge is finding mega lumens in a small package. Two pounds—about eight inches in length—is an ideal size, yet a portable projector must be able to be stored in a small space, and not arouse suspicion at the airport.

  3. They actually make a “pocket projector.” One salesman boasted that, at 50 lumens (pfft!), his packs as much punch as a thousand. Nice try, mister.

  4. There’s a difference between an LCD and a DLP display. Apparently, looking at a DLP can give you a headache of not-tonight-honey proportions.

  5. While I can grasp such measures as resolution, contrast ratio and viewable screen size, I’m puzzled by something called “throw ratio range.” I gather that’s the distance it’ll go when it suffers performance anxiety in front of an audience and I hurl it across the room.

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September 14, 2011 · 6:45 am

Chat it up

There’s a new blog I’ve started reading; I thought you might like it too. It’s a football blog.

I know, I’m not much of a sports fan, and I know next to nothing about football.

I do enjoy good writing, though, and I’m learning that sports writing is different from regular writing. Style guidelines are different—numerals are permitted within text and there’s a whole field of vernacular out there with which I’m unfamiliar.

Word Nymph is going into a busy work period these next few weeks, and could do with a lighter writing schedule. So today, I’ll point you to another blog. Chat Sports covers professional and college football, basketball, baseball and hockey. The San Francisco-based company encourages sports audience interaction through social networking and news on team-specific websites.

A couple of weeks ago, my son, an avid sports fan and recent college graduate, signed on part time with Chat Sports as a writer covering the Baltimore Ravens. He has written three columns to date which, if I understood the content, I’d find entertaining and insightful.

Check out his writer page, get to know him, read his posts, drop him a comment. Or jump into the chat on the ChatRavens page.

Yes, we’re still a Redskins family. But it’s fun to have another team to follow. Now if I could just understand what they’re doing out there on the field.

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September 9, 2011 · 8:38 am

Slow it down, run it back

I don’t suppose the White House, the organizers of political debates or the NFL would consider checking with me first.

The last two nights, I had conflicts that precluded my watching national events or otherwise attending to entertainment needs. I’m still catching up on what happened.

Wednesday night, I twitched and trembled when a social commitment kept me from watching Republican candidates debate the nation’s affairs and poke each other in the eye. I trusted I’d catch enough clips in the morning to catch up, but even a broad scan of news channels—as well as newspaper accounts and commentary—failed to bring me adequately up to date.

Thanks to my cousin, I was able to read the full account online and now feel completely caught up and entertained. The piece even culled the notable language twists and gaffes, just as I would have, had I tuned in.

Last night, the President graciously agreed to address a joint session of Congress at an early hour so as to not delay kickoff of the 2011-12 football season. Problem was, I was on my way to a special dinner and had to listen to the speech on the radio on the way over.

No problem, you think? The president—any president—addressing a joint session of Congress is my red carpet. I like to catch the lead-up commentary, be there for the knock on the door, hear the President announced and closely watch the procession down the center aisle. I note whose hands are being shaken, who gets a wink or a pat on the back, who sits with whom, what colors the women are wearing and the sneers on the faces of members of the opposing party. You don’t get that on NPR.

As if there weren’t enough entertainment on the menu, I also missed my brother’s live interview with Food Network Star winner—and Sandwich King—Jeff Mauro on his weekly culinary radio program.

I have a busy work day ahead but I won’t lie, I’ll be slipping in some personal time to catch up on everything I missed.

You know, they really ought to invent some sort of device that allows you to record programming for future viewing.

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August 30, 2011 · 8:34 am

The new ‘shortly’

Greetings from the other side of Hurricane Irene.

I won’t judge whether the exclamation points and all-cap warnings The Weather Channel threw around last weekend were warranted, because Irene certainly punctuated her path across Caribbean and American territory. Those who remain without electrical power have every right to use every symbol on the keyboard to express themselves.

At our house, we just disposed of the 40 pounds of ice we socked away for the occasion, and are all too grateful to not have needed it. In fact, we were gleefully fortunate to not have lost more than a few pesky tree limbs.

Would I seem terribly ungrateful if I griped a wee bit about the 40 hours we had no television or Internet? I thought so.

Then how about if I just shared some innocent observations I made during that 40-hour period?

  1. I am far more addicted to TV and Internet than I ever imagined.
  2. I’m not proud of this.
  3. The word “momentarily” is still widely misused. Hasn’t corporate America gotten it yet that it is not reassuring to hear that service will be restored momentarily? (I’d prefer it stay on a while.)
  4. The word “shortly” is subjective, but by no stretch does it mean 40 hours.
  5. Comcast customer service representatives are unprepared to answer the question, “How much longer will you use ‘shortly’?” Based on the awkward silence following my question, I kept my mouth shut about “momentarily.”
  6. When you call Comcast and press 2 to report an Internet outage, the recording suggests, if you do not care to continue to hold during this period of heavy call volume, that “you may also visit us on the Web at www.comcast.net for assistance.” Now why didn’t I think of that?
  7. When, following your call to the help desk, Comcast calls you back with an automated customer service survey, and you press 4 to indicate your call pertained to a disruption of service, you are told that they do not recognize this response and the survey ends there.
  8. My days as a loyal Comcast customer are over. Unless I find a friendly and reliable competitor, I’ll hold my nose and go with that other big company.
  9. The new Comcast—XFINITY—needs a new jingle. It’s not fun for me. Come on everyone, let’s dump XFINITY.
  10. It’s time to get back to work; I’m backed up by about 40 hours.
  

How many Moments are in 40 hours?

Momentarily? I hope not.

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August 26, 2011 · 8:27 am

Panic attack

Mark Twain was known to have said, “Everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it.”

As Hurricane Irene barrels toward the United States, the weather is all anyone is talking about. Someone, do something.

Usually, The Weather Channel is fairly tempered in its wording. Forecasters take such flak for both underestimating and over-hyping conditions that they must walk a fine line between issuing timely alerts and not inciting panic, even when conditions are urgent. By necessity, they choose their words cautiously.

In all the years I’ve followed The Weather Channel on weather.com, however, I’ve never read such strong language as I have these last 24 hours:

“extraordinary impacts”
“very dangerous”
“serious and multi-hazard threat”
“rare potency”
“particularly threatening situation”
“dire threat”

They’ve even created a new threat level category: EXTREME. All caps.

In fact, the site is using ALL CAPS and exclamation points all over the place! As drama goes, that’s the punctuation equivalent of Al Roker twisting in the wind.

Meteorologists caution that Irene will impose severe conditions on the major metropolitan areas of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, including Norfolk, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, Hartford and Boston. “This hurricane has the potential to produce flooding rains, high winds, downed trees (on houses, cars, power lines) and widespread power outages,” the site warns.

One troubling aspect of this looming disaster is that, not only must East-coasters prepare for damage and loss, but we also have to brace ourselves for ridicule from the rest of the country. California is still snickering over our little 5.8 earthquake, while red state residents are blanketing Facebook and Twitter with stupid quake jokes about policymakers.

I seriously hope Irene has a change of heart and a change of direction. No one would look forward to singing “Goodnight Irene” more than beach dwellers and East Coast city folk. 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to dash out for an emergency supply of Perrier and camembert.

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August 25, 2011 · 7:59 am

Reddit somewhere

A poll of social media aficionados:

Are you on Reddit?
How about Delicious?
Technorati?
Digg?
Well surely you’re on Fark.

No? Neither am I.

I did StumbleUpon for a while; even wrote a blog post about it. Word Nymph enjoys a steady stream of referrals from StumbleUpon and, recently, quite a few from Reddit.

I confess, I didn’t know much about Reddit until recently and still, I don’t fully grasp its value. (Speaking of value, reportedly, Condé Nast Publications upped Reddit’s worth to the hundreds of millions of dollars after acquiring it from the two 22-year-old University of Virginia graduates who founded it.)

Reddit got my attention when the so-called social news aggregator directed hundreds of referrals to a blog post I wrote three months ago. My post addressed the etiquette around graduation announcements and thank you notes.

As best I can tell, as Reddit’s paying members—called redditors—post searches, they’re directed to sites where they can find information. Unlike search engines Google and Yahoo, individual searches are posted publicly. Maybe I’m telling you something you already know, especially if you answered Yes to more than one question on my little poll.

Anyway, I haven’t joined Reddit, so I haven’t seen it from the inside. However, I can view the main page where the questions are asked and searches entered. Based on most of the comments and questions I’ve seen, many of which contain the apparently-now-socially-acceptable F-word and worse, a search for how to write a proper thank you note seems out of place.

My hands are  full with Twitter and Facebook so, unless a client shows that my grasp of those others would bring value to their pursuits, I’ll pass.

These sites will give you all the information you’ll never need, including  certain characteristics of Justin Bieber’s wee-wee (my synonym).

But, as best I can tell, only Reddit will point you to the best advice on how to write a proper f—ing thank you note.

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August 19, 2011 · 8:17 am

You rang?

How many of you remember the episode of Seinfeld in which a parking valet left a certain something in Jerry’s car?

Fortunately, that didn’t happen to me.

The other night, I met a friend for dinner at a wine bar in busy downtown Bethesda, Md., where valet parking on every block is a zoo.

Around 10 p.m., I claimed my car from a most grumpy valet. Perhaps he deemed my 30 percent tip insufficient. His shoulder could not have been colder, his good riddance reeking of ‘tude. Like the Seinfeld valet, but in a different way, this guy was a real stinker.

I got in the car, pulled away and tuned in to an oldies station. Nearly halfway home, I heard some unfamiliar music within a familiar song. I thought maybe it was an alternate recording with an edgy backbeat.

The music persisted. I turned off the radio, but the music continued to play.

While driving, I carefully patted my surroundings and came upon a cell phone. I knew it wasn’t mine. (My ringtone is my cousin’s two-year-old granddaughter yodeling.) The music stopped before I was able to answer it.

I deduced that the villainous valet had left this valuable in my vehicle.

There was no choice but to do the right thing. I pulled a U-ey and returned to the restaurant, where I found a frantic fellow fumbling for his phone.

When I got out of the car, waving the attendant’s smartphone, his attitude changed.

In retrospect, I kind of wish I had done one of two things: change his ringtone to something like “You’re No Good” or ask for my tip back.

What would you have done?

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August 16, 2011 · 8:42 am

Meet Mrs. Trumbull

I got a Kindle for Christmas.

Late last night, seven months and three weeks later, I turned it on for the first time.

In yet another battle of man versus very small machine, I won. It took more than three hours, but my Kindle and I are now on a last name basis. It’s such a simple device. How could it have been so difficult?

I won’t go into all the gory details; or maybe I will. It was a  chicken-and-egg, O. Henry, Catch 22 kind of thing. I had to connect the device to a wireless network in order to use it, but my wireless password contains characters that the Kindle doesn’t support. Or so said the nice lady at Amazon’s help desk at midnight last night.

I had spent about an hour reading various chat threads about this technical conundrum and read all of Amazon’s instructions, each of which began with “Connect to a wireless network,” when I finally gave up and called. (After doing business with Amazon.com for 10 or 15 years, this is the first time I’ve spoken with a live person.) She confirmed I had to have the guy who set up my password change it for me. Unfortunately, for him and for me, but especially for him, he is gravely ill in the hospital; I guessed he wouldn’t want to take my call. The only option was to contact the wireless router manufacturer for help. I was two-and-a-half hours into this adventure, and not looking forward to bringing in another party, especially as I expected this would involve crawling under my desk in the wee hours.

The story took a turn. Despite Amazon’s telling me the device could not support my password, I did a little fancy fingerwork and tricked the Kindle into accepting it. I registered it and gave it a name. I don’t know why devices want us to name them; it’s not like they’re our pets, but I went ahead and did it. If my Kindle were a pet, and considering my existing pets are named Ricky and Lucy, and I was still high off a recent Lucy marathon, then it would stand to reason that I name my Kindle Mrs. Trumbull.

I chose a book and ordered it. Lo and behold, the book is now in the good hands of Mrs. Trumbull.

When I saw Midnight in Paris earlier this summer, I promised myself, once I activated the Kindle, I’d re-read some Ernest Hemingway. That’s going to have to wait.

The first book is … drum roll … The Inside Tract: Your Good Gut Guide to Great Digestive Health by Gerard E. Mullin M.D., and Kathie Madonna Swift, M.S., R.D., L.D.N., Foreward by Andrew Weil, M.D.

Why? I won’t go into all the gory details.

I’ll just say my condition didn’t improve with a three-hour dose of tech diff.

 

 

By the way, is it me or would the average adult suffer late-night indigestion upon reading the following message from the Amazon help desk:

When setting up your WiFi, please make sure of the following:

-Your Router is B/G-Wireless Compatible and not broadcasting solely in Wireless-N Mode.
-You will need to know what encryption you have. If you have WPA encryption, your WiFi password will work, however if you have WEP encryption, you will need to use your 8 or 10 character WEP Key.
-Make sure that your router is not filtering MAC Addresses.

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August 12, 2011 · 8:54 am

Friend of the trendless

Do you know what’s trending? The word trend as a verb, for one.

Trend as a verb has been around a long time, but its use was always narrow. Data points trend upward, for example. As best I’ve observed, the verb trend is usually followed by an adverb or other modifier.

Lately, everyone’s talking trending, which I fear went out as soon as it came in. Or should anyway. I know, I know, it’s on Twitter, it’s on the news, it’s on the radio, it’s PR-speak. The Today show has introduced a daily feature, accompanied by the most annoying techno music, called “What’s trending Today?” At the risk of sounding like Andy Rooney, this bugs me. I suspect I’m a party of one.

This doesn’t mean I don’t notice trends. One hit me between the eyes this week. Three times in 36 hours, in fact. Does that ever happen to you? Never heard of something and within a day it’s everywhere?

What’s trending? Pisco. First I read about Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan enjoying a Pisco Sour at a local establishment; then twice more, someone or other was noticed to be sipping it; I think one might have been Justice Antonin Scalia. I’ve read that, as trending goes, Pisco could be the new Mojito. Or for D.C. foodies, the new Mumbo Sauce.

According to PR Web, Pisco consumption in the United States increased 101 percent in 2010. Whether or not that’s a legitimate trend would depend on what it was in 2009, or 2008. I was always taught that a trend is at least three data points.

I haven’t tried this Peruvian potion, Pisco. Heck, I’m not sure I even know what it is. One source I consulted says it’s a brandy while another calls it a spirit. We have a knowledgeable guy at our local liquor store, but I’m afraid that if I went in asking about Pisco, he’d laugh, sigh, roll his eyes or all three.

If he did, I’d know it’s already trended.

In a piece on Monday, Slate cautioned us to not hate Pisco because it’s fashionable.

I don’t think I’ll be serving up piscopolitans any time soon.

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August 4, 2011 · 10:49 am

Super coincidence

Darn you, Stephen Colbert.

On Tuesday I had jotted a blog idea on the back of an envelope and had only to fill it out. This, you recall, was the day the nation’s policymakers approved the creation of a Super Congress of 12 members, to hammer out solutions to the federal budget crisis later in the year.

I had outlined some thoughts about the notion of a “super” Congress. My mind spun the notion into a “Super-duper” Congress, beneath an “Über” Congress. I swear I wrote this, even if you don’t believe me.

As I fleshed out the outline in a hotel room Tuesday night, I flipped on Comedy Central for a little bedtime snack of super-reality.

I found Stephen Colbert interviewing New York Times Washington bureau chief David Leonhardt. Near the end of the interview, Colbert recited the very notes I had just typed in. Great minds.

You’ll notice, if you follow the link to the interview, you might or might not experience a problem with the audio. On one computer, I could get the audio; on another I could not. I did a search on “why can’t I get audio on Comedy Central?” and learned that plenty of people experience this same technical glitch.

Among them is a young person whose conservative father has cut off all of his/her access to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert; this young person was trying to find a work-around.

As a parent of a former sneaky teen, I sympathize with well-meaning parents who want to control access to inappropriate content. But The Daily Show and The Colbert Report? Seriously?

So, I correct myself. Not “Darn you, Stephen Colbert.”  So he unknowingly stole my idea. He got there first. Plus, he has a few more followers than I do. He has millions. I have hundreds.

I say, “You, go, Stephen Colbert. You’re a super, a super-duper, even an über role model.”

Oh, and I’m not even going to bother with “Satan sandwich.”

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