Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Hi!

It's been a while since I wrote something in here. My sincere apologies. But that's about to change, along with a bunch of other things.

March is a good time to start making some big changes all around. Why? Because at the end of this month I need to move into a new apartment, so it'll be like a fresh start. I plan on using this fresh start in a whole bunch of areas in my life.

For one, this blog. This blog used to be my only blog so I used to write about everything in here from personal stuff, to work related stuff, to whatever else I wrote about. Now I have a few blogs that I'm running and writing at the same time, so I'm going to try and keep them all a bit separate. This blog is now going to stay a little bit truer to it's title and become a bit more personal and about whatever I happen to be thinking about or doing when I write it. I'm also going to try to write here a lot more often. I know I've said that before, but this time I really mean it. Changes are happening.

For my more work related writings, such as PR, Social media and my quest to find myself the perfect job that combines the two check out (if you haven't already) the blog I started for a class in my Masters program but decided to keep going with, A Geek In PR.

Speaking of work related stuff, that's another thing I'm changing. I spent the last year and half in school and other ways learning and preparing for a job doing PR and social media work, but when I got back from Australia I fell into a job that is completely unrelated. I think I've become a little too comfortable there. While I have been looking for a job PR and social media, I haven't been going at it full force. Well, I'm going to step up my game there. Keep tuned here or on A Geek In PR for good things happening in this area soon.

I also have a few other changes to make in mind. There's some health related things I need to change in my life. I also need to actually figure out where it is I will be moving to at the end of this month. I'm going to save these things for some future posts here though. That'll make for content in the future and keep this post short. Always thinking I am.

Anyways, watch out for these changes, right here.

PS - I'm also making sure that every post in this blog has a song to go with it, cause I think that I let slip in a few posts in the past.

The Ultimate iPhone Project

Anyone who knows me knows I love my iPhone. It's my baby. I ordered a special case for it off the internet because I couldn't find one in stores that would protect my baby enough. I don't know what I'd do with out it.

I'm also always searching for things to make my baby better. New apps. Themes. Plug-ins. Whatever.

Yesterday, Robert Scoble tweeted this link to AppsFire's blog that shows (what I assume can only be some of) the apps that he is using on his iPhone. I thought it was interesting to see what apps he uses. That inspired me to come up with this recent harebrained scheme entitled "The Ultimate iPhone Project".

I want to know what apps you're using and loving in order to make my iPhone (and hopefully yours too) into The Ultimate iPhone.

This is a really simple and easy project that I'm hoping a lot of people will be interested in helping out with. All you need to do is leave a comment with what you're using and think is the best thing for your iPhone. This can be apps, themes (for jailbroken iPhones), games, whatever you think is the best of the best on your iPhone.

Now my phone is only a 3G, which means I can't use apps that require the compass on the 3GS, but that doesn't mean you can't post any of them here.

Also, free and/or cheap apps are preferred (as I'm still a broke student), but if something is really worth the money you paid for it, put it up.

I thought I'd start with listing some of the apps on my 1st iPhone page and what I think of them to get the ball rolling.

• My theme - right now I'm using the illumine theme. I like (and am looking for) themes that are cool and sleek, don't require a lot of changing things around to make them look good and ones that don't have app icons that are so crazy that they make my apps whose icons don't change look very out of place
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• Battery percentage - through SB Settings (must be jailbroken to use) so I can see how much battery I actually have left
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• Score Mobile - I use this for my sports updates. I like the easy to use and read interface, but am willing to try something else
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• Weather Eye - I use this one because they're the weather channel I watch at home in Toronto and it gives me more details than the one that comes with the phone
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• TwitterFon - this is the current mobile Twitter client I'm using. (I also haven't updated it since they changed the free one to have ads. I think they now call it echofon) Always willing to try a new one. I use tweetdeck on my laptop, so wouldn't mind trying their iPhone app one day
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• Evernote - I used to use this app a lot both on my computer and iPhone (they sync with each other) to remember everything, but now can't remember the last time I used it. Willing to take this off the front page
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• Shazam - great for finding out the name of a song that's playing, but I don't really use it a lot
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• NetNewsWire - I got this because I use their RSS reader on my desktop so I liked that they synced. Now that the desktop version uses Google Reader to sync, I'm willing to try any app that will sync with my google rss
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• Icy & Cydia - I use Cydia for finding jailbroken apps and themes, but can't say I've opened Icy more than once. Should take that one off the first page as well.
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• Categories - (available through Cydia on jailbroken iPhones) you can't see it on my homepage there, but I use Categories to make folders on my second page so that I don't have 1,000 pages worth of apps. The folders I made are "games", "useful stuff" and "fun stuff"

Ok, now that I've got the ball rolling, it's your turn! Leave a comment and let me know what your iPhone favs are. Also, please share this and tell your friends to join in as well. Hopefully we can collaboratively put together The Ultimate iPhone.

After I start to get a bunch of suggestions I can try out I'll update everyone with how I change my iPhone.

I'm Not Rude, I Just Don't See The Point

Just wanted to say this:

I don't understand why some people feel the need to thank everyone that retweets something they said or shared on twitter.

The other day someone said thank you for retweeting a link they posted. The thing was, it wasn't a link to something they had wrote, it was just something they had shared because it was interesting. This wasn't the first time this has happened either and I just don't see the point.

I post links on twitter because I thought something was interesting and I wanted others to see it. If someone retweets it than that's awesome, more people will see it and probably think it's interesting too. That's what I put it there for.

I'll thank someone if I put up a personal request like "I'm looking for info on ...." and someone on my list who may not know the answer will retweet it. They just did me a personal favour and I'll thank them for that. I just don't (usually) see retweeting a link I posted as a real favour.

Some people will say it helps to build relationships, but if you want to do that with me I'd rather we engaged and talked about whatever it was I just posted. That would help build a relationship with me.

But thank you to anyone who ever has or will retweet something I post.

That's just my personal thought on that.

Not The Brand I Was Looking For, But Maybe For You

Before I left for my trip I said that I was going to read Dan Schawbel's Me 2.0. Well, I finally did and here's my thoughts.

I would recommend this book to a lot of people, but it wasn't what I was looking for.

I bought this book looking for some new ideas on how I can expand my 40deuce name, my personal brand. This book was more for recent graduates who are looking to explore new ways to try and make them stand out in a job search. Most of the ideas revolved around using web 2.0/ social media to their advantage.

Most of the things the book recommended were ways to use social media, which I think I'm kind of on top of already. I would however recommend this book to people who are coming out of school and aren't as involved in using social media. If that's you, I would highly suggest you take a look at this book and try at least some of the ideas Schawble presents.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't think it was a total waste of my time. The book did give me a few new ideas and even a few ideas to fix up some of my old ideas. Schawbel definitely knows what he's talking about and holds quite an impressive resume (which kind of makes me mad, cause I think he's younger than me).

Anyways, I think that aybe I should have looked more into a book on branding for my whole 40deuce life, but since I'm going to finishing my schooling days in the next 2 months and will be on the job hunt, I'm glad I read the book. BUT, if you're already have a job and are really into social media, you may not want to bother reading it.

I think this song goes with the get a job theme (plus it's funny because the drummer was my manager at the bar I worked at back home):

40deuce

I Have Something Else For You To Read

Just in case anybody actually reads this blog... AND, just in case you actually enjoy my writing... I have news for you.

I had to start yet another blog as a class assignment. This one will soley be focused on looking at how communications professionals use Web 2.0.

If you care to read it, check it out @ A GEEK IN PR

They Don't Believe Me That I'm Me

If you follow any celebrities on Twitter you may have noticed that the site has started to verify some celeb's pages. For example, check out Quest Love of the Roots or Oprah's twitter page and notice right above their name the little checkmark and "verified account" badge. If you click the badge it takes you to a page that explains the how and why they're doing it (see here).

I have nothing against this idea. I actually think it's a good idea. Big businesses and well known celebrity names carry heavy influence over people, and an impostor can screw up their public image very quickly. If I owned a large company I wouldn't want people who have nothing to do with me saying things and claiming they've come from me. Doesn't even matter if it's positive or negative, it's still not really me. I'm sure you can all relate to the feeling.

However, since I'm not a big company or a big celebrity (yet) I was kind of weirded out to be asked to verify myself. I wasn't asked by Twitter either. I was asked by a regular everyday person whom I had added to my list earlier in the day.

I was adding some people in my industry for networking purposes while in my new home down under when I received a DM saying "[username] uses TrueTwit validation service. Please follow this link to validate your profile." Check out the service for yourself here.

Esentially, it's a service that asks anyone who follows the person using it to go to a website and enter a captcha to prove they're a real person. The service then sends the user an email that says I'm a real person, you can now check to see if you want to follow them back.

This is kind of crazy if you ask me. As I've mentioned in other posts, I don't believe in auto-follow-backs of people that add me. I like to check peoples profiles before I add them to my Twitter list. You can usually tell within 10 seconds if the page is a real person or a spam page. Heck, I don't follow everyone that follows me even if they are a real person.

Besides the laziness of the service, because we all know how much effort it takes to click a few links and look at a twitter page for 10 seconds, there was something else that got me about this service.

I could have signed myself up for the service which would have made me one of those auto-DMers that I hate, but it also would have automatically verified my "realness" to anyone else using the service that may have wanted to add me.

If I could create a spam page and then sign it up for the service so that my spam page is automatically verified... doesn't that defeat the whole point of the service??

Just a thought.

40deuce

Guess Who's Back, Back Again

So I'm done the main travel portion of my time in Australia. I'm now settled into a place in the Sydney area and have started school again working on my MPC (Masters of Professional Communication).

Most importantly, I have a proper internet connection now and will be blogging here once again.

If you want to see what I've been up to for the past 2 months, click here.

40deuce