automaticable

You may have noticed a little downtime this afternoon.  That’s because we’ve upgraded the blog to use the brand new Wordpress 2.5.  The change should go unnoticed for the casual reader, but the upgrade means many enhancements for writing and maintaining the blog.  Among the biggest changes:

• Simplified admin dashboard: The interface for writing and managing the blog has gotten a major face-lift.  What used to be cluttered is now much more organized and easy on the eyes.
• Integrated Statistics: We’ve been using the Wordpress Stats plugin to analyze our visitor data.  Now it’s been integrated into the main dashboard for quick access.
• Better Photo Management: It’s now much easier to upload and add images to posts, without the need for additional plugins.  You can even create a gallery associated with a single post very easily.

The upgrade process was nice and simple, and everything seems to be working as expected.  We’ve also added a new subscribe link in the sidebar.  If you notice something wrong with the site, please let us know in the comments.

If you're new here, you can subscribe to automaticable's RSS feed by clicking here. Or, you can get post updates through your email. Thanks for visiting!

I try to keep up to date on a lot of different topics, and there is no better way to cover massive amounts of information than through blogs. I taught you before about how and why RSS feeds are so important, and now I’ll give you a rundown of a few of my favorite blogs to help fill up your RSS reader. Like I said, I try to cover a lot of topics every day, so I’ll break down my recommendations by subject as best I can.

Advertising - Even if you aren’t in the advertising biz, there is still a lot of interesting information out there. I recommend:

• Adland - Adland receives submissions of both commercials and image advertising and puts the best on display. This is a great place to see the hard work and the resulting concepts from advertisers all over the world. No industry is excluded, so you will see ads for pepper spray next to commercials for vodka.

• SEO Book - This one definitely comes to down to personal interest, but I love reading about SEO news and tips and SEO Book is a great place to learn. Obviously the motivation for Aaron Wall to write this blog is to sell his book and subscriptions online, but he puts out a ton of free, useful information all the time.

Food - Though I don’t often cook large extravagant meals for myself, I still like to inspire myself to try new things. My favorite food blog is:

• FXcuisine - François-Xavier (FX) is an amature cook and food photographer, but you would never know he wasn’t being paid to do this work. Hailing from the shores of Lake Geneva, he focuses on traditional Italian, French, and Swiss cuisine, though you will find influences from all over Europe in his work. The reason I absolutely love this food blog is not for the recipes since they are fairly difficult and usually use obscure ingredients, but because of the absolutely beautiful photography and the step by step instructions included for every dish he makes.

Geeky - I definitely have a geeky side, and it shows in my choice of blogs. Almost half of what I read is tech related! Below are just a handful of blogs that satisfy my geek-tooth.

• Google Blogoscoped - While not an official Google blog, Blogoscoped comes darn close. This blog is a great way to not only get up to date Google news, but also tips and tricks on all of your favorite Google products.

• Gizmodo - This is simply a fantastic source for gadget news and reviews. Though it can be inundating with over 35 posts a day on average, it is easy to skim through and read what really catches your eye. Coupled with Engadget, you will never miss a single gadget announcement, ever.

• xkcd - While not a blog per-se, I still have this daily comic imported into my RSS reader. If you have even an ounce of geek in you, you will absolutely love xkcd comics. They are clever, witty, and downright nerdy. I have never felt so smart for laughing at a comic. Don’t worry though, there are comics you won’t even understand, meaning there are people out there nerdier than you.

Interesting/Random - The rest of these blogs don’t fit into one category very well, but are all worth reading. They will teach you things you never knew you needed to know, all while entertaining you.

• Lifehacker - No single blog has changed my life more than Lifehacker. I am not exaggerating when I say that either. It focuses on “life hacks” you can use to make your life more fun, productive, and efficient. From high-tech hacks such as Linux installation guides to ultra low-tech hacks on how to help conserve water, Lifehacker has everything you will ever need to know. If I had to recommend one blog that every person should be reading, Lifehacker would be it.

• Clusterflock - Clusterflock is considered a group-blog, written by a large team of blogging friends. It has no real focus but is always entertaining. Many of my posts on automaticable have spawned from ideas on Clusterflock and I expect to find even more inspiration from there in the future. They also often comment on posts by Jason Kottke, who is one of my favorite bloggers right now as well.

• Marginal Revolution - Marginal Revolution is an economics blog. Before you judge it, give it a try. Included is the continuing series “Markets in Everything,” which covers how people will try to start businesses in everything from wigs for cats to demilitarized ICBM silos, and the ongoing discussion about how prostitution, both legal and illegal, effects the world economically. This blog will make you look at the world differently, forcing you to take a look at the economic effects of every decision that is made.

These are only a handful of the blogs I read daily (there are over 40 on my list!), but this should be a great place for you to start. Have I missed any blogs you feel should absolutely be included? Let me know in the comments. I am ALWAYS looking for new and interesting blogs to read.

1 month ago today automaticable and I (and 3 other Wegner brothers) started an interesting new relationship. When automaticable.com was birthed we had a handful of posts to import from our old Blogger days, but we pretty much started from scratch. So what do we have to show for it? Read on for an overview of our first month.

Continue reading “Happy 1 Month Anniversary!”

I know correlation does not imply causation, but I still want to apply fuzzy logic to this post I found on clusterflock. Excerpt below:

How Some Bloggers Feel About Talking on the Phone

Yglesias: “I couldn’t be more thrilled with the phone’s decline. I used to be painfully shy as a person, and while I’ve largely gotten over that IRL I still find it incredibly stressful to talk to people on the phone.”

Atrios: “I think I enjoyed chatting with girls when I was 13 or so, but since then I’ve pretty much hated the phone.”

Alan Jacobs: “This is a loathing I share, and have for a long time.”

McMegan: “Weird fact: every single (successful) blogger I know hates talking on the phone. I’m gregarious face to face, and I’m an inveterate user of various kinds of textual messaging, but I would rather scrub my floors with a toothbrush than get on the phone.”

The logic I want to apply is this: I am a blogger by definition since you are reading this post. I also very much dislike talking on the phone, but consider myself socially competent both in face to face interactions and through text. These facts combined imply (fuzzy logic incoming) that I am a soon-to-be successful blogger.

I know, I know. This makes no sense. But if successful bloggers hate the phone, and I blog and hate the phone, there is at least potential, right? I wonder what the real reasoning behind the correlation between bloggers and their hatred of the telephone, if there even is one. Anyone want to do an in depth study on this? I’m sure there is a psychology major out there that needs a thesis or term paper topic.

It’s 2008, so you know what that means. No, not the Olympics. No, not your daughter who was born on February 29th, 2000 will FINALLY turn 2. What I’m getting at is that it’s the year of the vote. This is no more fun that doing taxes, except you have to do taxes every year and only vote every four years.  Politics are like the bible, you know what’s going to happen, but you keep going back to them anyways in hopes that there’s going to be some kind of change, but inevitably there won’t be. Now, I’m not very political at all, hell, I usually vote for the guy that can be best photoshopped into a monkey (sorry bout the Bush vote, totally not my fault). Sorry, dramatization there, I do actually take the time and do some research and pick who I think will be best for the position (again, sorry for the Bush vote, totally not my fault). This year we have two front runners who basically sum up the the entire schlepper of man/woman kind. Now, I mean this figuratively of course, because who really is a schlepper now a days, other than Ralph Nader. The two candidates I’m talking about are Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. (Sorry McCain, you have to be a bench warmer for now….)

Now, here’s the first thing that sets these two people apart from every other candidate we’ve ever had; they’re different. Obama is African American, and Hillary is a female. (Is it sad that I thought of Kindergarten Cop when writing about how Hillary is a female?). ANYWAYS this is the first time that the next President of the United States will either be a woman, or an African American and frankly that scares a lot of people. Now, I’m not saying that it scares me, I think it’s a great idea! Maybe in another 4 years we can have a Disney Character in the office! I should prob stop with that part of the rant right now before I take it too far….

But anyways, back to the candidates. So Brittney Clinton, er, I mean Hillary Clinton has been bashing Obama a lot recently. The big one that comes to mind is she is releasing photos of him over in third world nations dressed in typical Muslim attire and implying that he is working with terrorists (she won’t directly state this because THAT is an outlandish statement!). So, yeah, she’s using sly tactics and is just getting bashed beyond belief….oh well!

Now, to be fair, Osama, er Obama’s (wow, slip of the tongue there) no saint either, he’s using mud slinging tactics as well, but unfortunately he’s not as bad as Hillary so therefore, no hard evidence to prove that he’s such a bad guy.

If I come off a little biased here, what ever, its a blog, you should be a work working anyways, not reading this silly thing. For now I’m gunna go eat some frozen french toast sticks with warm eggo syrup and drink a quarter gallon of milk, because I live in America, and darnit, that’s the healthy American thing to do!

By the way, Happy Birthday all the sons and daughters out there born on February 29th….I know your birthday comes only once every 4 years, but trust me, in 84 years, you’ll be able to drink legally!

As most of you know, on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 there was another miraculous sight given us to by nature; a Total Lunar Eclipse.  This is something I have only seen a few times before in my lifetime, but by golly, I swear it gets better and better every time!  I’ve always been a fanatic for anything astronomy, hence why my freshman year of high school I went on an Earth Science field trip just so I could be in the desert and see as many stars as possible.  Tonight’s viewing of the lunar eclipse was especially magical for me because I got to watch it with Lindsay by my side.  The astros has always been regarded as something magical and romantic and I totally agree, star gazing is still one of my favorite pass times.  As we were desperately waiting outside in the -6 degree weather not only did we get to witness a total lunar eclipse, but from where we were standing, we were also able to view a shooting star from our location.  We also couldn’t have asked for a better viewing setting.  For one of the very few times during the year, the skies over DuPage County were clear of any clouds, fog, haze, or smog.  I swear I was able to see more stars tonight than I have ever been able to see in a suburb.

I was excited to see tonights Total Lunar Eclipse, and I’m also excited for another three years from now, for when the next one is.  For all you people out there that missed it tonight, mark this date on your calenders; December 21st, 2010!  Keep your eyes on the sky, for you’ll never be sure what you might see.

One of the key reasons blogs have gained popularity is because they are a constant source of new material. Because of this, a system was put in place for people to easily aggregate all of their frequently updated blogs (and many regular websites) into one place. Blogs, news sites, message boards, podcasts, and pretty much everything in between create “feeds” which send information every time something is updated on their site. The nice thing about these feeds is you, the user, can import them all into one place using RSS, or real simple syndication. Using RSS, you can import all of your frequently updated sites into one place, such as Google Reader (my favorite, among a plethora of other options), so you don’t have to go and check all of your favorite sites individually in case they have new content. More than anything, it is an efficient way for you to scour the web for updates on sites that you frequent anyway.

One of the drawbacks of using RSS is you don’t always see the author’s intended formatting of each story since each RSS reader translates the data a little differently. Also, if you are a fan of participating in the comments on different sites, you will still need to visit each site to do so, as the comments are generally not included in each feed.

Anyone who frequents even a handful of blogs will be able to tell you of the benefits of using the RSS feed on sites. It saves you the time and energy or scouring the internet for new content and will also allow you to cover a lot more content in much less time. If you’d like to subscribe to automaticable’s RSS feed, you can click here or on the red button in the upper right hand corner of your screen. And just FYI, that button (usually orange) is the universal symbol for RSS, so any time you see that symbol you can click on it and have updates imported to your RSS reader automatically.

Well, I guess I can take ahold of this new place in line as the “New Guy.” Let me introduce myself, My name is Doctor Fraiser Kraine, professional radio psychologist. No, actually, I kid. My name is Brian Wegner, brother to all three of these other crazy bloggers that you have met so far. I reside in a cold cabin that I like to call, a bedroom in my parents house located in Downers Grove, IL. I’m currently attending College of DuPage, the local community college going for a general AA (Associates of Arts) degree and hopefully transferring off to one of the cardinal colleges to obtain a bachelors degree in Recreation Management. I, much like Scott (because he is my twin), am 21 years old. Let me talk about this a little bit actually.

Warning ahead of time, there are mention of underage indulgences ahead, so if you disagree with this, then stop reading now and please visit www.disney.com they’ve been waiting for you.

When I turned 21, I feel as if I changed a full deal more than I ever have before. When I first started college, attending Southern Illinois University Carbondale, I did as most freshmen did on their first weekend of college; I went out to find the best party in town and drink the night away. Needless to say I succeeded and was glad that I picked the college that I did. As time went on, and the weekends kept coming up quicker and quicker, and the parties got rowdier and rowdier; I realized that I loved the party atmosphere, but I didn’t like the skunk beer. So I started to have my friends buy me my own beer. I would make sure that I indulged in enough of my better, non-skunk beer to where when we went to a party, I was unable to taste the bitter beer. This went on for about two semesters, and when I came back in the fall of my sophomore year, I had my own apartment, my own fridge, and my own beer crisper (vegi-tray). I had also turned 20 that semester and decided I was against the house parties, and more for the bars, so that’s what I did. I frequented more bars than house parties. I enjoyed this new setting, it gave me a new sense of belonging and the atmosphere was amazing, but best of all, I didn’t have to drink skunk beer if I didn’t want to. I kept frequenting bars, and enjoyed every minute of it. After my sophomore year, I moved back home to finish up my AA. I turned 21 on a weekend and spent the majority of it with my girlfriend (Lindsay), my twin (Scott), his girlfriend (Stacy), and the rest of his roommates down at UIUC (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign). The rest of the weekend is obviously a blur, but it was definitely one of the most memorable weekends of my life (ironic huh?). Now that you have the background and lead-up story, I can now explain the change.

Since turning 21, I’ve noticed that drinking just to get drunk is really immature. The parties, the beer bongs, the drinking games, they all seem so…childish. Yeah, it’s fun to indulge in your young side every once in a while and do these things, but I have no real motivation or wanting to do this on a regular basis anymore. Instead of drinking every weekend of the semester, like I did freshman and sophomore year, I now only indulge in a tasty beverage every once in a while and haven’t been to a bar since my 21st (which was in October). I don’t drink to get drunk, I drink to socialize. Basically what I’m trying to say is I’ve lost my desire to be a “party animal” and now love just drinking on occasion, and this is by no means, a bad thing.

I hope this first blog doesn’t make me seem out to be an alcoholic, because I’m not. I’m just another 21 year old, living life day by day, and changing with the world around me. Enjoy the rest of your day, because I know I will.

-Brian

Even though I work in an advertising agency, personally I do everything I can to keep unwanted advertising out of my life. I have Adblock Plus for Firefox, I subscribe to the National Do Not Call registry, and I filter out as much unwanted junk mail as I can. Because of this, I have only seen a handful of the ads we have created at work out in the wild.

Because of this, I was quite surprised to see one of our ads for the March for Babies, a non-profit affiliated with the March of Dimes that was previously called WalkAmerica, show up in multiple Google Reader feeds today. I forgot that as part of our campaign we had decided to host RSS feed ads through Pheedo, meaning all of my traditional ad-blocking techniques would not filter out this message. This made me realize just how powerful RSS feed ads can really be; they are targeted to a specific audience, can be served in many banner sizes, and will reach people who generally block those types of ads. I’m sure there are RSS readers that block these ads, but Google Reader, as one of the most popular available, does not.

I guess more than anything I am happy to see one of our non-profits being hosted successfully through Pheedo and reaching a large, captive audience. I am glad I haven’t taken steps to completely cut advertising out of my personal life, as I wouldn’t have been able to see the results of what I work so hard on while on the job!

We are very excited about our new look and feel here at automaticable and hope you are too. Along with a new URL, theme, and author (welcome Brian!), we have also started spreading the message of automaticable throughout different web sources in hopes of driving traffic to the site. Many of you are coming in through facebook feeds (and I’d guess some of you are just reading the posts within facebook), people have found us through technorati, and there is also a ton of random traffic being shot our way. Welcome everyone!

As much as we love you all reading what we have to say here on automaticable, we would really love to hear what YOU have to say! To let us know what you are thinking, start participating in the comments. Tell us what you like, how you’ve used some of our tips, or what you suggest instead. Let’s make this a conversation that we can all have fun with.

Hope to hear from you all soon!