Twitter makes sharing the subtle nuances of life with friends and family easy

I used to put a small byline by each blog post here at the Journey Inside My Mind Blog:

Mood: Happy
Listening to: Coverville
Reading: Join the Conversation by Joseph Jaffe
Eating: baby carrots
Watching: Twitter in Plain English

These short, bite-sized nuggets (such as what you just saw above)would let you know how and what I was doing. Since August 2006, however, I've opted for a different way: Twitter

You may already know about Twitter, but the folks from Common Craft have put together a video that really helps it make sense:


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Check out my other blogs:
Daniel Johnson, Jr.
Get That Job!
Journey Inside My Mind Podcast
QuotesBlog
Twitter.com/danieljohnsonjr
The Pod 5
Wanna get LinkedIn?

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Miles Davis knew how to play

... and fortunately for us his music is still around to enjoy. Jeff Turner on Twitter pointed to this video:

It reminded me of this post from 5 years ago: Paving the Milestones Related tags: journey+inside+my+mind journeyinsidemymind jimm daniel+johnson+jr jeff+turner miles+davis

Todd Van Hoosear and Ryan Stiles - Twins Separated at Birth?

ToddOrRyan
Originally uploaded by tvanhoosear

You be the judge.

It's so funny how we get to certain places on the web.

1. Yesterday on Twitter, C.C. Chapman encouraged people to take pictures of themselves at work, upload them to Flickr, and tag them with "slackershots". He even registered www.slackershots.com to point to the tag page for it.
2. One of our fellow Twitter friends, Todd Van Hoosear, uploaded a picture of himself.
3. I browsed the gallery and remarked on Twitter that his picture resembled Ryan Stiles of Whose Line Is It Anyway?
4. Todd then posted the picture you see in this post and mentioned it on Twitter.

Todd and I have never met in person, but I sure hope we get to at some point.
What's that? You want to know what picture I submitted? I didn't have my camera with me yesterday, so I resubmitted my picture as a Home Fry Speed Demon.

Related tags: journey+inside+my+mind, journeyinsidemymind, jimm, daniel+johnson+jr, twitter, social+media, cc+chapman, slackershots, flickr, todd+van+hoosear, ryan+stiles, whose+line+is+it+anyway

The new media playground is like jazz

Mood: upbeat
Listening to: Managing the Gray: Every Day is a Good Day
Reading: Learning XML, Second Edition
Eating: an apple

I checked my Bloglines and noticed that C.C. Chapman mentioned my name on his latest episode and the Journey Inside My Mind Blog in the shownotes, specifically with an audio comment about how the new media playground is a lot like jazz:

"Do not fear mistakes; there are none." - Miles Davis.

A lot of jazz music usually involves improvisation within the boundaries of a chord progression. The song starts off, usually with the melody. Then different instruments take their solos, which usually fall within the same chord progression as the melody. Eventually everyone comes back together to wrap up the song.

I'm probably grossly oversimplifying things with that description, especially when you consider trendsetters like Miles Davis, who through constantly reinventing himself, created new boundaries and genres of jazz music (Check out this post from 2003 for more information: Paving the Milestones).

I like to think that's what it's like with what we're doing with new media.

ABOUT DANIEL JOHNSON, JR.

I suppose I should share a bit more about me, in case this is your first time here.

I've been blogging since January 2002 and podcasting since August 2005. I now have more blogs than I care to count. Here is more of me, in case you're interested:

• Daniel Johnson, Jr. - my portfolio blog
• Journey Inside My Mind Podcast - the podcast spin-off of this blog
• Get That Job! for job-hunting, career development, toolkits, success stories, and the like
• QuotesBlog quotations collected from various places over the years
• Follow danieljohnsonjr on Twitter - more frequent updates of stuff going on. By the way, if you add me as a friend, please contact me via email or leave a comment here so that I know how you found me.

And of course you can find me on MySpace, LinkedIn, and other social media networks. I'm always open to connect; just let me know how you found me.

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Most folks tweet about coffee over other beverages

It would appear that most folks on twitter like to post about coffee over other popular beverages (Tweetvolume: coffee vs tea vs milk vs water vs beer). The picture below was taken at about 1 PM EDT on Wednesday, May 30, 2007:



Related tags: twitter tweetvolume coffee tea milk water beer

More frequent posting now on Twitter

I've realized that my enthusiastic use of Twitter has meant infrequent posting over here. Who knew that I could limit myself to 140 characters or less?

This is all to say that I don't mean to neglect you. If you want to see what's going on with me more frequently, follow me on Twitter. I will still post things back here and my other blogs from time to time; namely

• Journey Inside My Mind Podcast
• Get That Job!
• QuotesBlog
• Daniel Johnson, Jr.

Breaking Technology Addictions

Mike Schaffner points us to an eWeek report on a recent poll by Reuters that discussed how Blackberrys and laptops are blurring the distinction between home and work life.

He recommends the following useful techniques:

1. Take action to reduce the number of unnecessary emails that you receive
2. Prioritize your actions - take control of when you check and respond to email

He also recommends going into your Blackberry and turning the new email notification off so that you're not tempted to check it every time a new one arrives. The key to remember is that laptops and Blackberrys are not your jobs; instead they are tools to help you do your jobs.

Here are the comments I left:

You hit a nerve in me with this one, Mike, on a couple of levels.

1. I am totally for getting information when it's convenient for me. I consume most of my media on-demand these days. The idea of watching a program at a specific time is something I'm growing out of. The same with online media (blogs, podcasting, and the like). I'm learning to consume it on my schedule.
2. Having said that, I'm also a guy who checks every email that comes in and who also spends so much of my time lately watching what's going on with Twitter (http://twitter.com).

I have recently found out how to change the notifications for Outlook and GMail, but I could do a lot better with Twitter.

What about you?

Frustrations with hearing impairment show need for sensitivity

Earlier I made this post on Twitter:

*!$% hearing impairments! Ugh. So frustrating sometimes!

Then I put my daughter to bed, cooling off a little bit. I returned and decided I should post again:

Clarification on my last Twitter: I'm just frustrated at hearing impairment. Ppl who know me understand that we deal with it every day

Now the real back story. Earlier as I was trying to get her into bed, different things kept coming up to hinder that. Then as she was getting her bed ready, I was in the living room, and she called out. She needed a pillow because hers were in the dryer.

So I told her to get one from our bedroom. She apparently didn't hear me - go figure. So I called out a bit louder for her to get one from our bedroom. Again - so I basically called out as loud as I could for her to hear.

A few minutes later I went to her room to tuck her in, and she had this hurt expression on her face. "I don't like when you yell at me," she said.

That's what I meant by hating the frustration of hearing impairment. I need to remind myself constantly that I practically need to be in the same room as Keisha in order for her to hear me; especially when she has her hearing aids out at night. If I'm going to be sensitive, I need to make this kind of effort.

I have written about our experiences with deafness and hearing impairment a lot in this blog, but I'd love to know what you have to say.

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My dreams are weirder than yours - mid-March 2007 edition

I've often said in this blog that my dreams are weirder than yours. This morning as the alarm started going off and I went through the usual routine of hitting the snooze button every 9 minutes, falling back to sleep, guess what?

I started thinking about my day, previous days, and my mind went off to Twitter. I thought about how frequently some of my friends update and how I've stopped getting notified via IM because of frequent notifications. I now prefer to get updated via the website. As I was thinking about these interruptions via chat, the alarm went off again. Thinking about one interruption interrupted by another.

I thought that was weird, or at least interesting. Have you ever had something like that happen to you?

Related tags:

journey+inside+my+mind journeyinsidemymind jimm daniel+johnson+jr dreams twitter interruptions snooze+button