Emulation

This word has a few applications. As in, emulation software is what we once installed to get modern PC’s to behave like dumb terminals, when we connected them to an IBM mainframe computer. If this sounds like ancient history to you, I understand. It was about 25 years ago, now.

Emulate is also something I aspire to do, when I see someone who inspires me. For instance, from the first time I saw Les Brown delivering a motivational speech, I thought that I might like to be like that guy. Helping people get inspired and encouraging them to go out and live their dreams; to achieve anything that is possible, must be way more fun and interesting than anything I’ve done up till now.

So, now I’m in Toastmasters, honing my presentation skills, as one day I plan to emulate the greatest speakers, so I can deliver a message that makes people want to go out and change the world! 

How was that for an “e” word?

Oh, by the way, speaking of changing the world, have you heard of Screenmobile and what they are doing in Liberia, Africa? Scroll down a bit on my Facebook page, to find the picture.

Enjoy!

Desacralize

This word means to remove the aura of sacredness from. Being not sure this is appropriate to describe the derision due rolling stone magazine (caps removed on purpose), it is simply a word plucked from Webster’s at this late hour to satisfy my writing requirement.

Nothing in the rules says I cannot finish this tomorrow.

Saturday it is. Every week we want one. This is the reason Friday is such a happy day for so many. But, not for me - I work every day. Friday was a tough day. Not enough to do in the morning and then too much to do at the end of the day. Today, I work, SEO projects are due.

That’s all I’m willing to say.

Commercial

There must be hundreds or thousands of better words that qualify for the “C” entry in our alphabetical endeavors. However, there are enough meanings to this word to make it interesting and this word definitely gives me license to vent.

On TV, there is a commercial where the guys says he is spending six dollars a day for a burger and for that same price, he can get a truck. If I were saying this out loud, I would pause here for effect! 

Seriously, there is someone willing to go on television and tell us that his life is so miserable that he is willing to eat a six dollar burger every day? What does he do? Where are his parents? Who let him out? Did no one tell him that there are other foods available for lunch? Has he considered a salad, a burrito, sushi, a hot dog, or some other variation on a sandwich? Why, please someone tell me, would anyone eat a burger every day for lunch? If I drive the same truck as he does, does that suggest I suffer from the same lack of imagination?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Because It's Easy

The hard part is deciding which of so many available words to use. And, I feel like I’m cheating, because my dictionary is somewhere else as I write this. Because purity still matters, let me go get that.

OK, here it is. “B words” begin on page 148, with “ba”, defined as an aspect of the soul, represented as a human-headed bird;  from Egyptian Religion. Wiktionary has it backwards, as they say, “represented as a bird-headed figure.” So, maybe hard copy is the way to go here….

My reference source is; Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, New Deluxe Edition, from Thunder Bay Press. So, I think I’m going to believe the definitions shown in this book, over those I find on the Internet. This opens an argument, I suppose, about the validity of online information. As in, you’d better check it, before you believe it.

The “B words” end on page 288, (abbreviations not included) with the word, “byzant” - which means; (in Romanesque Architecture) any of a number of disklike ornaments, similar in form to the classical patera, used esp. on the faces of archivolts. So now, we have to look up patera and archivolts.

Maybe we use archivolt 25 days from now, if we go around another loop of the alphabet. Oh, alright; it has something to do with a vaulted arch. Can you see it now?

Bye, because, Brian being behind brings bitter boo’s between buddies.

Enjoy!

Look It Up

When I was a kid, “look it up” meant breaking out the dictionary, or consulting the volumes of an encyclopedia for answers. Today, we have Google, Wikipedia, Answers, and probably hundreds of other online resources to find answers to our queries.

So, what? So, if you need to find a topic to feed your need to write, you now have at least a thousand fold resources at your fingertips as I did as a kid (more than 40 years ago now, if you want to know).

So, here’s the thing. I’m looking for something to write about every day. For this purpose, I could easily go back to the roots and consult the dictionary for a new word each day. If I start with a word that begins with the letter “A” and work through to “Z”, I’ll nearly fill an entire month of articles for my blog.

In that regard, let us begin with: Anachronism

As in, if you are still consulting hard copy as your only reference, you may be considered, “anachronistic.” You are, by definition, out of time.

 

Reading Beautiful Prose

Maybe it’s luck, or maybe we make our own luck. Either way, I have the privilege of being associated with the Palm Springs Writers Guild. There, I’ve made a few contacts and some have become customers.

One is a published author (now) and he has to his credit a book I’ve enjoyed for the past several weeks. Although I could simply read right through it, I’m savoring each chapter and every page. 

I have permission from the author, Paul F. Clark, to quote directly from the text, so here you’ll see what I mean, when I say; This Victorian Woman (Mary Teagarden Clark) really knows how to tell and illustrate a story with her words.

This passage is on page 79:

“The next visitor was the children’s tall grandfather [Abraham Teagarden], who like all truly great souls, made himself a child with them. An ardent lover of flowers, he enjoyed their garden and sat for hours by the playhouse, listening to their childish chatter, for like many children, they had most vivid imaginations. And he, long in the storm and stress of life, gladly laid down his many burdens to enjoy the young life which had come to cheer his later years.”

I’ll paraphrase Bob Dylan here; “You can’t write that.” It seems like divine inspiration. Except that there are many passages just like this throughout the text. This is reason enough to take it in slowly. There are many pages of notes by the editor/author, on the historical facts that support the stories Mary Teagarden Clark tells. Hers is the memoir and the book is her great-grandson’s work of art.

I’m going to write more of this. There are many pages and paragraphs that move me, often nearly to tears, with the insight and beautiful phrasing carefully crafted to paint the picture of so many scenes. You’ll see.

This is no cliffhanger. The book; “Pioneer Ranch Life in Orange” is available from many sources.
The author, Paul F. Clark, will soon have a live website that will showcase his many talents.

For now, buy the book and enjoy a good read.

 

Favicon Discussion

This started out as a gentle suggestion to a fellow blogger, that she might consider adding a favicon to her site. Owing to my usual overzealous approach to things, I created a favicon based on what appeared to be her logo. After sending her this small file, I then created a post on one of my sites to explain what a favicon is and how it represents your site on the web. 

Then, I put the question out to a few of my associates asking them what they thought about favicons, and whether they were relevant, useful, ignored, or what. My first respondent said, absolutely, they represent your brand and should be used. Second response was similar, followed by a suggestion to create this blog post, explaining how to create and use one.

OK, I’m going to give you the “how I created mine” explanation here. In a later post, I’ll describe how I include a favicon on my websites. So, here we go.

There are a few ways to create favicons, but I’m only going to give you the two I’ve used here. One involves using a piece of software, named IrfanView. This versatile image editing software is free and will allow you to open, modify, and “save as”, many different graphics formats. You can download it from places like Filehippo, or Ninite. You’re welcome!

Mac users, you’ll have to find something that compares and fill me in on what works for Apple.

OK, here’s the easy way out. Just point your browser at: http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/favicon/ and upload your image, then download your icons. You may want to play around with your file first, to get it into a perfect square. Since the favicon is going to come back to you as a 16X16 pixel square, you’ll have a better idea of what to expect if you submit a square image in the first place.  Here is the original - 48X48.

 Here’s how it looks as a favicon - 16X16.

That’s all for now. I’ll give you some hints on how to put a favicon on your sites in my next post.

Enjoy!

Something To Say

Long ago, this expression became part of my book of expressions:

A wise man speaks, because he has something to say.

A fool speaks, because he has to say something.

You decide which this post is.

If you run out of things to discuss on your blog, consider these:

  • Things happened to you today.
  • You learned something today.
  • With any luck (or effort on your part) at all, you met someone today.

  1. Today, I helped a few people with computer issues and sold a bit of my service as a web designer and SEO expert.
  2. Today, I learned that I do, indeed, remember how to spell infinitesimal!
  3. Today, I met with someone who may help me to change the direction of my future.

Any of those three would provide enough subject matter to fill a blog post. But, now I’m done.

That was easy, huh?

BR

Blogging About Blogs

Somewhere in my zeal for blogging, I realized I had created a tangled web. I even posted an article about the many blogs I had been working in an article about my blogs. Are you still here?

Well, OK, stay with me if you have the patience.

After a brief review of that first article, I now see that even some of my original blogs have morphed into something more focused on the hidden agenda of blogging; content for SEO.

Yes, I’m coming clean here. Your blogs are more than just a way of showing your clients what you know about what you write. They are more than just an easy way to let people get to know you, how you think and feel, and what’s on your mind, day to day. Your blogs are the content we can exploit to help you be found by people searching for your product, service, or subject matter.

Check that last phrase, please. Subject matter is what people are searching for on Google. The results they get can be directed to your website, where you will sell your product or service. That’s SEO in a nutshell.

Join in the fun. Start a blog, or add another article to one of yours. Need help getting started? Search me out; just search for “Palm Desert SEO Expert” - or take the easy path and click this link.

Empathy for Leonardo da Vinci

Imagine being a man of genius in an age where technology simply did not exist. This post could end right here and still have the same meaning and impact. In other words, what more I can say will do little when compared to the volume of material available to the casual researcher, on the immense importance of a man truly ahead of his time.

He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. The obligatory Wikipedia link….

It makes my head swim, to think of how this man must have suffered, pondering and dreaming of future things; like living your life stuck in quicksand, knowing you are going to die long before realization brings to fruition all your mind has brought forth to enlighten the world!

There is simply no way I can convey with mere words the empathy I feel for this monumentally important historical figure. I am so blessed to be living in this modern age!

You Will Be Missed

Would you think it strange that I miss someone I’ve never met? My wife, Margaret, tells me often about her mother. She cries, too, often, when expressing how much she misses this woman. I never did meet her and now I miss her, too!

Anger is one emotion I feel when I am frustrated by not having the writings or the stories of people I miss. If I had more of my grandmother’s articles, which were published in the West Dundee, Illinois newspapers, under the title, “Just Reminiscing”, I would treasure them, as I do the few that I have. It makes little difference to the world, but it matters to me, that her words are there in print, her memories are now all I have to enhance my memories of her.

As for my wife’s mom, I know she was a beautiful, patient, kind, diplomatic woman; valedictorian of her class, a Southern Belle, a loving mom and probably more of a simply good person than I’ll ever know. And, I’ll never know. 

If only we had had blogging and the Internet and a mission to capture their stories before they left us!

Certainly, you know these things are available to us now. What prevents us from going out and gathering these stories from all of the loving grandparents and parents that are still alive to tell us today? Nothing prevents us from doing this, except inaction. I have a plan. Join me.

Can you help? Will you support this cause? I’m not asking for money, yet.

Fun With Fitness

Today, at the fitness center of Sun City Palm Desert, one woman said to her cohorts, “Why is my left side stronger than my right?”

I couldn’t resist, so I stepped in with a theory on this phenomenon. “There’s an explanation for that.”, I said. “Since your right hand has the skill, your left hand is used for carrying things. This makes your left hand and your left side stronger, since it does most of the work.”

I suppose I could have said, “I have a theory about that….”, instead of simply stating my explanation as if it were rooted in fact. On the other hand, three women at the gym seemed just a little bit happier after this exchange. So, no harm done.

Seriously Funny

This expression I once used to describe myself. Now I’ve found that Thurber long ago cornered the market on this way of presenting things. You might think that if “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” had been your favorite short story since you first read it in grade school, that you might have picked up a book filled with other works by that incredibly gifted author!
Not me, no, that’s not the way I do things. Or, at least, I’ve not done so for over 40 years now…. But, guess what - you can still borrow books for free! You can even go to a “clean well-lighted place” and enjoy peace and quiet as you read. 
Thank you, Rancho Mirage Public Library, for all you offer. Thank you, PSWG, for drawing me into this wonderful place.
                                                                              

If you need to know more about mousy search terms, or mouse help, click any link in this paragraph. At mousehelp.org, we answer all of your mousy questions and even provide results for a long-tailed search, like; help me with my mouse - no pun intended! This is shameless self-promotion, with a link to computer mouse help, so we can compete with number one.  

Mouse Help dot org - Organic SEO on Purpose

An experiment with SEO - I began on May 5, 2013. It is, as the title says, about SEO for the purpose of being found, when people search for Mouse Help. Use any of the links below for details and to follow my progress with this endeavor. Soon, a link to Mouse Help dot org will be on the first page of search results.

                                                                              

If you need to know more about mousy search terms, or mouse help, click any link in this paragraph. At mousehelp.org, we answer all of your mousy questions and even provide results for a long-tailed search, like; help me with my mouse - no pun intended! This is shameless self-promotion, with a link to computer mouse help, so we can compete with number one.  

It's Quarter To Ten

Closing in on bedtime, I am reflecting on a conversation I had recently about blogging. The question was posed; “How do I get subscribers to read my blog?” You might think I had a ready answer, but I did not. The best I could offer was this question: If you did not care at all about getting subscribers, would you still write the articles?

Maybe I’m just misguided. Maybe I’m a little thick in the head. Maybe I just like writing. 

But, I hadn’t thought about getting subscribers to my blog. I just assumed that if I posted useful material, stuff that people might find useful, interesting, or at least fun to read, and then, if I post links to these posts on Facebook and Twitter, people might click the link, land on my blog and read my articles. Call me presumptuous, call me a dreamer, call me crazy, or call me for help with your computers, your networking, your Social Media, your SEO, etc. Whatever you call me, or for whatever reason you call me, if it is as a result of having written and posted articles on a blog, I win.

I’m going to write this stuff anyway. You can’t stop me. I can’t help myself. I just like it.

BR

Three Things

 

  1. New feedback from clients and readers.
  2. One of the best things I’ve seen on television.
  3. One more wonderful thing on the GodVine website.

It’s 8:30 AM and I’m preparing to run off and do other things. So, come back later today for the rest of the story…. (remember Paul Harvey?)

OK, it’s a bit late, but here we go. It’s just after 9 PM.

1. This week I learned that I have to do a better job at managing expectations. By that, I mean I really need to spell out in detail what certain services mean to a client and his or her computer. Also, a couple of clients have provided valuable feedback on my blogging project. Most think it’s a great idea, once I’ve had the opportunity to provide details. Many are resistant to it at the outset, as the idea of writing a blog holds little appeal on its own merits. With the addition of benefits to seniors and young people, the idea seems to make a whole lot more sense.

2. On American Idol this week, a young lady sang a song she had composed herself and it was immensely popular with the judges. Moreover, it was incredibly uplifting, with great lyrics and the singer belted it out with such commitment and emotion, it made me cry.

3. Margaret shared a link from GodVine with me and it takes you to a video of two boys singing a love song. It is also a study in two completely different levels of confidence. One boy looks down when he sings and you find yourself wishing he would raise his head. The other boy plays guitar and is having such a good time with the performance, he is so very captivating and quite proud at the end. Here’s the link, so you can have a look. 

 

 

Palm Springs Writers Guild

If you came to my site because I met you today at PSWG, Welcome!

It’s a bit past my bedtime now, so I’ll finish this tomorrow.

OK, so tomorrow is here and it is Super Bowl Sunday! We played two sets of doubles tennis this morning, had a nice chat and now I’m back to writing, while troubleshooting a computer, and exchanging mail with my new-found friends via PSWG. So far, it has been a pretty good day and it isn’t even noon, yet.

Lately, the challenge is nearly constant. That of becoming a published author. It seems if I expect to achieve my wild dreams of success, I first must write a book. Toward that end, I’ll end this post.

Watch for it, wait for it, expect it very soon. If you are not blogging, I hope to inspire you to do so.

Enjoy!

BR

Some Kind of a Blogging Nut

I’ve recently been called “Some Kind of a Blogging Nut” by a person of prominence. Stated in such a derrogatory manner, it was no term of endearment! For some reason it tickles me, as I aspire to live up to that pejorative.

Chances are, if you don’t understand blogs or blogging, you are not going to see this post. That is so sad, in so many ways. I suppose not everyone is capable of comprehending the changes brought about by the Internet for writers.

The one thing I’m trying to convey with my writing here is that for those who have led a life with any interest, it benefits the entire world for them to share their experiences in a blog. That’s most of what I have to say, in a nutshell.

If you are a writer, if you are a blogger, if you use the Internet to do research, surely you understand my message. We have wonderful resources; managed sites, like Wikipedia, and other formal information sources available for these purposes. But, in them, we won’t find the personal accounting of the history from people who lived through things like the great depression, WWII, the Korean War, or Viet Nam. Seriously, any simple story some person wants to share about how it was and what they were doing when they were going through it may be of value to someone who would not otherwise understand that experience.

This is the essence of “Blogging for Posterity”. Future generations will want to know.

It’s really quite simple. Blogging for posterity requires only the ability to tell a story. Sharing your point of view from where you were in that part of history may be the most valuable contribution you can make to society, your friends and family, or maybe only to yourself. The value of social networking comes from participants who are willing to contribute. Be one of them.

That’s all I’m trying to say.

BR