Twitter | Words & Tricks

Music library getting dusty? 3-and-a-half websites you may not know (but should immediately bookmark)

April 15th, 2008 | 2 Comments | Posted in Advice by Chris Pommier

Finding that you’ve gotten into a rut with you music? If, as my fellow Twitterer BigBrightBulb said (who blogs here and twitters here), you’ve been filling out your 80’s pop collection based on Muzak from your favorite burrito shop,, then I’ve got some tips for you below. Or, maybe, like me, the hard drive that housed all your music crashed beyond repair. The smell of burning plastic does not bode well for my Tori Amos Discography.

Either way, I’ve got a short list of sites you’ll want to check out.

They’re not as famous or popular as Last.fm, iTunes, or Yahoo! Music, but maybe you’ve already tried those, and just maybe they’re boring you to tears. Especially since you want to find music that challenges you, and pushes your boundaries. You want to find music uncovered by the most music-obsessed people on the planet. Music bloggers.

Look no further.

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A couple updates to Words & Tricks: Tweet Digest and Comment Love

March 28th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted in Admin by Chris Pommier

Source: FlickrIn the interest of centralizing my online activities, and encouraging more participation in the comments section of Words & Tricks, I’ve made a couple small tweaks to the site.

First Tweak: Tweeting

Though I haven’t been able to find the time to blog regularly lately, I have found that posting to Twitter is fast and easy. I can even do it from my cell phone. So, I’ve installed the Twitter Tools WordPress plugin in order to collect my tweets each day and automatically post them as a digest, or roundup, to this blog.

This is experimental, since I don’t want to spam you, or my own blog with annoying daily messages that have little substance. After a couple weeks, please give me your feedback as to whether this feature is worth keeping.

Second Tweak: Editable comments that keep track of you

I’ve tweaked the comments section using the WP AJAX Edit Comments WordPress plugin to allow readers to edit their comments after they submit them. Misspell something? No problem! Your comment is editable for a brief time.

Also, in order to encourage commenting, please note that I installed the CommentLuv WordPress plugin. If you have a blog and enter its address in the URL field, CommentLuv will look for your RSS feed there, and pull the title of your most recent post to link to you comment.

Enjoy!

And the award for comment of the week goes to…

March 10th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted in Opinion by Chris Pommier

photo credit: [177]

In response to my last post in which I embedded a popular video by Common Craft explaining the why-would-I-bother and how-does-it-work of Twitter, Aspartaimee had this to say,

i can’t keep up with kids today. bloging and txting and ROTF, and twitter and the myfacespacebook. i feel like i need to retire to a double-wide somewhere and gnaw on cold chicken from a bucket as i yell out the window forkids to get out of my yard, don’t they know they are interrupting my stories?

Though Asparaimee isn’t yet on Twitter, she did admit that she’s seeing it everywhere lately. You can find me, and follow me, there.

Thanks, Asparatimee. The prize for winning the Comment of the Week award is my undying gratitude for reading and commenting. As well as fame and glory, such as it is.

What do you think? Enough with the social media already? Or will there never be enough ways for us to communicate with each other while we’re supposed to be working?

Finally, shouldn’t there really be something called Myfacespacebook?

Video: Twitter in plain English

March 6th, 2008 | 8 Comments | Posted in Uncategorized by Chris Pommier

I’ve been getting a touch obsessed with Twitter these days. I used to wonder, “Why?” Well, there are some fascinating and fun people on there, and 140 characters just fits into my attention span.

This video, after the jump, from CommonCraft explains it well.

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World’s greatest people make wishes, blow out candles at TED conference

February 29th, 2008 | 4 Comments | Posted in News by Chris Pommier

The breathtakingly self-aggrandizing and expensive TED Conference is going on right now in Monterey, California. Owned by The Sapling Foundation, a private 501(c)3 nonprofit organization established by Chris Anderson in 1996, TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. With a moniker like that, is it any wonder that it looms large online? It began as a conference to bring together individuals from those three industries. Now, it’s staff members devote themselves to “spreading ideas.” According to the TED website, “the conference brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers.”

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