The Rundown: QR-Codes

Scan me!By now you’ve seen a few of these strange little box looking things on various items such as groceries, movie advertisements, websites, t-shirts, etc. They’re called Quick Response Codes or simply QR-Codes for short. QR-Codes were originally created by Toyota’s sub-company called Denso to be able to locate cars when they’re being built. They are a matrix barcodes or a two dimension barcodes that can be generated at a number of sites online such as http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ for example. You can provide the generator with a URL, text, a phone number, and even an SMS to be made into a QR-Code. To be able to decipher the QR-Code your smart phone will need a QR-Code reader installed on it. Kaywa offers a reader but I prefer the reader from i-nigma. Once the reader is installed on your smart phone you can open the app and start scanning.

(read more HERE)

The Rundown: September 11, 2001

The Rundown: September 11, 2001

 By: Jason Roberts
 
 
At 8:49 a.m. on a Sept. 11, 2001, CNN got the first report of a plane hitting one of the World Trade Center towers. - http://goo.gl/tGcF7
 
On the morning of September 11, 2001 I was at my father’s house seeing my grandparents off as they headed back home to Florida. At that time I worked part time for my father’s company so we were waiting word back from a supplier. As we sat in my father’s living room, my step-mother came into the room to tell us to change the channel to CNN because something had just happened at the World Trade Center. My father switched channels and CNN was already on the first tower fully engulfed in flames at the impact zone. I remember staring at the screen in awe and I wondered what had happened.  We were going back and forth to what we thought could have been the cause of the first plane to strike the North Tower.
 
 
I’ll never forget seeing the second plane come into view from the right of the screen and strike the South Tower and watched the huge fireball explode as the 767 made impact.
 
 

This image was quite unsettling because I knew the number of causalities would be high due to the amount of people that worked in the towers. Back in May 2001 I had briefly visited New York City for the first time. While I was there I used the Twin Towers as the South landmarks as I navigated my way through the streets of Manhattan. I never made it all the way down to the World Trade Center complex, the closest I came was Houston St. To now see both towers with planes crashed into them and on fire was something I could have never imagined.

CNN broke in on the coverage of the World Trade Center and showed a camera view of Washington, DC with a scene of smoke billowing but we couldn’t really tell what exactly they were trying to show us. When the CNN anchor announced that a third hijacked plane had just crashed in the Pentagon I immediately figured this all to be a large scale terrorist attack. United States citizens had not seen events like this on U.S. since Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Being the news junkie I am, I recalled the World Trade Center attack of 1993 and I wondered if in some way it was all related. This group of terrorists were obviously coordinating the attacks in concert and it had us all wondering what was going to happen next and where it would happen?

It didn’t take much longer for us to learn the answer to that question. CNN informed the world that fourth hijacked plane had crashed into a field in Stonycreek Township, near Shanksville in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh and 150 miles northwest of Washington, D.C.

The next few weeks that followed I kept up with the continuing coverage of the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. I felt a deep sense of sorrow for the people who perished and the families who were having to deal with losing their loved ones to such a horrific event. At the time I didn’t quite understand what motive Al Qaeda had to inflict such damage to the citizens of the United States but now I can clearly see why. I honestly can attribute a lot of the problems the United States is currently dealing with can be attributed to the September 11th attacks in some way shape or form. In closing, I really hope our political leaders of government can put aside the partisan politics to finally get America back on the course to recovery.

The Rundown: Gmail

By: Jason Roberts 

April 1, 2004 marked the end of email dominance for AOL and Yahoo. That is the date when Gmail was launched as an invitation-only Beta. Like many others I had a Yahoo and Hotmail email account at the time and I was quite curious to find out what the all chatter was in regards to Google’s entry into the email race.
 
I eventually scored an invite and set up my Gmail acct on July 1st 2004. The first email I sent was to all my friends and family telling them all that I had switched over to Gmail from my Hotmail/Yahoo accounts and this change was for good. Here we are seven years later and I’m still using the same account and I don’t regret the change one bit. I was sick to death of all the spam emails that I was receiving through my Hotmail/Yahoo accounts and Gmail’s ability to screen out all the spam garbage won me over immediately.

 
Classic view in Gmail

The ease of sign up and use, 1 GB of space (at that time), and the lack of spam made Gmail a runaway success. I’m amazed at how Gmail how grown in storage space (7GB +) and functionality due in part to the Google Labs and are tested and sometimes they eventually graduate into a full fledged new feature for Gmail. If you’ve not done this, go into your Gmail account settings and click on Labs and checkout all the available experimental stuff that Gmail can do. One feature I was extremely happy to see integration of was pictures in the body of Gmail because for the longest time you had to attached all of your images. The undo send feature is a lifesaver sometimes if you happen to click send by accident and it allows you the ability to stop the email from sending. Signature tweaks was another great addition because like Outlook, it allowed you to create an email signature so you didn’t have to type out this information for each email you sent.

With the additions of Google Documents, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Voice, Google Buzz, Google +, Gmail has grown to become even more useful on a daily basis and began to gently nudge users towards for integration to running everything they do on their laptops in the cloud. Already Google has completely redesigned the Gmail, Google Documents, Google Calendar interfaces in an attempt to get them to match up to the newly launched Google + interface.

Preview (Dense) view in Gmail

I enjoy the mobile versions of Gmail on my iPod touch and iPad. I’ve used the iPod touch version of Gmail mobile since November of 2007 and I love it. I bought my iPad December 2010 and I’ve used it an enormous amount on it as well. I’m really looking forward to using Gmail when I upgrade to my new iPhone sometime next year.

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I didn’t realize at the time when I signed up for my Gmail account that I was also establishing my Google account that would unlock the door to everything else that Google would eventually have to offer, all for free. If you are looking for a stable email with 7 GB of storage you should seriously consider switching over to Gmail. Google also offers Gmail to businesses and universities for a fee. The next ten years should be quite interesting to see the direction that Google takes Gmail.

The Rundown: Klout

The Rundown:  

By: Jason Roberts
How influential are you on the internet? That is the question Klout is trying to answer. I joined Klout when I was invited to their Beta after discovering their site through a start up list blog I read. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the site at first since you could only link your Twitter and Facebook accounts to it. I’m not a big fan of Facebook so I hardly use my account. On the other hand, Twitter is where it’s at for me. I’ve been a heavy user of Twitter since 2008 under various handles but jason_. I’ve watched Klout grow and the media attention increase as the months go by. As your Klout score increases you unlock perks made available through certain advertisers. So far I’ve grabbed the perk for the TNT show Falling Skies, where I received a cool survival package of a army compass, army canteen, army field nap satchel, and army style cap and this stuff isn’t cheaply made either. The other perk I snagged was an invite to the U.S. release of Spotify. I’ve enjoyed this perk quite a bit and I was even able to earn a full month of the premium service when I got five people to sign up under my referral link.
Klout now allows  you to link your Klout account to your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare, You Tube, Instagram, tumblr., Blogger, Last.fm, and Flickr accounts. I’ve seen where connections to Google +, Quora, yelp, posterous, and Wordpress are coming soon. Each connection you make to your Klout account will increase your influence therefore increasing your overall Klout score. As you see I’ve got each one tied to my Klout account with the exception of Instagram because I don’t own an iPhone yet, which will change soon. Recently,  I’ve read where Klout is being used by hiring managers to find talent to gauge the applicant’s social media influence.   Your Klout account is broken down into the following:
Score Analysis - Your Score - The Klout Score measures influence on a scale of 1 to 100.
Network Influence - Network indicates the influence of the people in your True Reach.
Amplification Probability - Amplification indicates how much you influence people.
True Reach - True Reach is the number of people you influence.

Klout also provides the user with the following information:

Topics - these are the topics that Klout feels you’re influential about to your connections.
Influencers - shows who you influence and who influences you.
Lists - You can build a list of people on Klout - for example I have http://klout.com/#/JoeFernandez - who is the CEO and Cofounder of Klout on my list that I just started yesterday,
Klout Style - You are a Specialist - You may not be a celebrity, but within your area of expertise your opinion is second to none. Your content is likely focused around a specific topic or industry with a focused, highly-engaged audience.
Achievements - So far I’ve managed to earn the Klout OG - “You’ve been around the block with us and then some. Thanks for being there in the early days and sticking it out. Just kick it a while longer and see how far we go. Or else…” and Summer of Klout - “Way to go! Your Klout Score braved the dog days of summer and still came out on top! Maybe it’s time for  a vacation?”
 If you wish to display your Klout score on your blog or website you can grab a widget from here http://widgets.klout.com/ 
Currently my Klout style is…
Your Klout style will vary as your Klout score goes up or in some cases down. I use a handy Klout extension for Google Chrome that displays the Klout score for each person / company in your Twitter feed as shown in the screen shot below.
I can see how companies can easily utilize Klout to market new products via Klout perks to those who are more influential across the internet. It’s quite entertaining to see just how much what you say and do on the internet can determine your Klout score in either direction. Klout has made me think much more about the content I post and how I go about doing it as well. I suppose only time will tell if Klout will continue to be a benchmark for social media influence.

The Rundown: New Beginning

By: Jason Roberts

This past Friday my daughter started Kindergarten at her new elementary school right down the street from our home. Yesterday she turned five years old and she’s been attending Montessori since she was two and a half years old. When my wife and I took her to her new school Friday we were so happy that she easily transitioned into her class. Once she stored her backpack away and gave her teacher an apple and the required school supply items she found her seat. She read the welcome note on her desk to her teacher and began doing her morning work. On the 11th of August her school had an open house which we took her to and she was able to meet her new teacher and see  her classroom for the first time so I believe this enabled her to just jump right in on day one.  Someone asked me if I cried when I dropped her off on Friday and I responded to them that I did not. I told them that I was way more emotional about dropping her off at Montessori for the first time when she was still so small because I was worried about the thousands of things that a parents of an only child drives themselves crazy with. I was extremely impressed how much her Montessori school had prepared her for Kindergarten and there was no crying, screaming, or wanting to go back home with Mommy or Daddy from her whatsoever. I’m so happy that we opted to send our daughter to Montessori to allow her to have the jump start on her education that she needs so much in this day and age of academic competitiveness because I can already see that she’s reaping the benefits.
 

A while back I established a blogger account for my daughter’s cake creations she loves to make on the iPad. On Saturday I showed her the blog and she decided she wanted to make an entry. We went back and forth with ideas about what she could post and finally one stuck in her head that she wanted to go with. She told me about her experience of her fist day of Kindergarten so I decided to help her document it into her blog post.

I was raised by my mother and grandmother until I started private Kindergarten so I was never in a pre-school class of any type. I can remember that it was the very first time that I had ever stepped foot in a classroom. My wife works on the administrative side of education and her mother and step-father are full graduate level professors. I’ve learned a great deal about the value of a education through the three of them because I didn’t get that from my family growing up. Like many teens I had thoughts of going to a division one college but it never panned out for me. I went to high school in Mississippi which is one of the worst states in the country for education. We were living in Biloxi, MS because my step-father was stationed at Keesler AFB. I was never pushed by anyone to achieve a level of academic excellence that’s expected of a graduation high school senior who wishes to attend college. I blame myself a great deal for not being assertive to find out how to make my dream of attending college a reality. I’m a Florida native, so my natural college selection was Florida State University because it’s just down I-10 East a 196 miles, or 3 hours 13 minutes away from my hometown of Pensacola, Florida.

Unfortunately for me this never transpired and I ended up going to work the winter after I graduated from high school. I’ve since attended college classes on the junior / community college level for networking, media technology, and web development which have helped me a great deal in the current position I hold. I say all of this about myself because I absolutely refuse to allow my daughter to fall through the cracks of the educational system like I did. My wife and I are on a mission to ensure that our daughter will always get the most out of her educational experience from Kindergarten all the way to college.

The Rundown: Scenic Wonder

Guest post: @jason_
The tag line below for The Official Site of Colorado is so true…

My family’s first experience with Colorado took place back in July of 2008 when we flew into DEN from BNA on Southwest. At DEN we picked up our Enterprise rental Nissan Xterra and drove five hours to Lake City, Colorado to stay for the week with family. Lake City which is located in Hinsdale County, is an absolutely amazing place to visit and see. If you’ve not had the chance, I strongly suggest you go and truly you will be able it get away from it all. The five 14ers in this area of the San Juan range of the Rocky Mountains was a beautiful sight to see each day and is still ingrained in my memory three years later. Uncompahgre peak at 14,321 feet in elevation was absolutely incredible to see for the first time and Lake San Cristobal offered us quite a stunning landscape.

Lake San Cristobal

Photo Credit: Jason Roberts 2008

 
A few factoids I learned about Lake City when I was there like it doesn’t have a hospital, instead they opted to purchase a helicopter. You will not find any commonly known chains like McDonald’s, Walmart, etc in Lake City and I honestly didn’t miss them. One local person informed me that the previous winter they had ninety inches of snow. The former silver mining town of Lake City has a census of around three hundred plus but in the summer it swells to many more than that thanks to tourism and the many fans from the Lone Star state of Texas. I lived in Texas from 1991 through 1994 in Wichita Falls and Waco and I loved every moment I spent in Texas. I spoke with quite a few people in town I totally understand why they dig Colorado so much. The high summer temperatures in Texas can’t compare with the mild summer climate in Lake City with an elevation of 8,671 feet. I recall being somewhat chilly a few nights as we sat on the deck and chatted and noticed the absence of mosquitoes.

Our rental house was situated on a hill and we all enjoyed sitting around the table working the thousand piece jig saw puzzle of the moment. Every once in a while you would get that feeling that someone or something was staring at you. When you looked up you would see a mule deer quietly staring you down through the open window. Mule deer are much larger than their cousins the white tail deer that I’m used to seeing around where I live. The howls of coyotes in the middle of the night as they stalked the area was something I wasn’t quite used to hearing. One night my wife and I heard a loud ruckus only to find out the next morning that a large bear was rumbling through our area.

One  of my favorite times in Lake City was when we visited the Vickers Dude Ranch for the half day horse back ride up the mountain.

Vickers Dude Ranch 

Photo Credit: Jason Roberts 2008.

I must say if you visit Lake City, then it’s a must that you head over to Vickers Dude Ranch and have one of the ranch hands saddle you up with one of their many fine horses. My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed our horseback adventure up the mountain and back down it. When we reached the top of the mountain we tied the horses up and enjoyed a fantastic bbq. The view from our lunch spot was spectacular and you could still see snow on the caps of some of the mountains.

Outside of going to visit my family in my hometown of Pensacola, Florida, I honestly had never been on a true vacation getaway before. I was totally happy with our first choice in Lake City and we were able to spend a lot of quality time with our family and have fun without the external distractions that we’ve so commonly allowed to filter into our daily lives like cell phones, television, video games,  and computers just to name a few. Although I didn’t totally go off the grid the entire stay, for the most part I did my best to spend time with my family because after all that is what our vacation was all about.

View of part of downtown Lake City from the park which my daughter loved dearly. 

Photo Credit: Jason Roberts 2008 

The Rundown: Get Glue

We all enjoy various forms of media such as music, movies, television shows, books, movie stars, and video games. One night while reading my Twitter timeline I ran across a tweet that included a link to a site that I’d never seen before, of course the site I’m speaking of is GetGlue . GetGlue is bascially a mash-up of Twitter and Foursquare because the user can follow or allow other users to follow them. GetGlue partners with various studios and production companies so they’re able to offer the user a “Stickers” when they check-in to the music, movie, television show, book, movie star, or video game they’re currently checking out. The Stickers are broken down into tabs that consists of Limited Time Stickers, Featured Stickers, All Stickers and there’s even a Search for stickers too.

In a short amount of time I’ve watched as GetGlue rocketed past it’s competitors such as miso for example. Actually there are quite a few other sites that offer a similar service to what GetGlue offers but it seems to be the site of choice for majority of Twitter feeds I follow. GetGlue makes checking in easy due to the range of applications available for iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, other types of phones. So far I’ve used the iPhone app on my iPod touch, the iPad app, and I was a beta tester for the BlackBerry app on my 9650.

On the Suggestions section of GetGlue you will encounter an tabbed page that offers the following: New Releases, Recommended, Trending, and Lists. Items shown in the New Releases tab is a list generated from recently media items coming to market. I enjoy this tab because I’ll see something advertised and like everyone else get busy and forget all about it and then I’ll come across it in the New Releases tab. The Recommended tab consists mainly of media picked that are very similar to the media items that you’ve selected to mark as a “Like” or “Favorite” which kind of annoys me a little because I never like any of it. The Trending tab displays results of hot items on GetGlue that are getting a lot of hits at the current time from each type of media. The Lists tab on GetGlue provides the user the opportunity to sort through various lists using Quick Rate which contains all media selections and mark the particular media as something they “Like” or “Favorite”.

Like many others I enjoy surfing the web while I enjoy a tv show. A favorite show of mine, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations on the Travel Channel, has incorporated GetGlue into it’s ad spots. The show utilizes the Twitter conversation hashtag #NoReservations and Anthony Bourdain will frequently live tweet during the show. Currently the Travel Channel is promoting GetGlue check-ins to the show where if you check-in to the show each Monday night and you earn all the Stickers for No Reservations you will be entered in an drawing for swag from the Travel Channel gives away some sweet swag.