What's in Your Toolkit?

Chris Brogan wrote a great article detailing a number of the social media tools available for us to use. He suggested that we all assemble our own useful tool kits. He started the list with these sites:

• Listening Tool - Google Reader
• Search Tools - Technorati and Google Blogsearch
• Home Base Blog - Wordpress.com or Wordpress.org to host your own).
• Scratch Blog - Tumblr
• Better Reach - FeedBurner
• Mobile Blogging - Utterz ( Qik for streaming video from your phone).
• Social Conversation - Twitter
• Social Profile - Facebook
• Business Profile - LinkedIN
• Social Bookmarking - Del.icio.us
• Collaboration - PBWiki
• Shared Documents - Google Docs
• Instant Messaging-Web Based - Meebo or Campfire
• Photo Sharing - Flickr or Zooomr
• Video Hosting - Blip.tv (also YouTube)

I would adjust that list for my own use this way (and note, I do very little in the way of "mobile" interaction")

• Listening Tool - BlogLines is my preferred RSS Feed Reader.
• Search Tools - Technorati and BlogLines Search feature
• Home Base Blog - Blogger I find this the easiest blog to modify and use.
  
• Scratch Blog - Bloglines offers a "congretating blog" that I never use but could. Blogger allows multiple blogs, or VOX
• Better Reach -I need to work on this.
• Social Conversation - Twitter, seesmic Short video social conversations are developing here, and the potential of linking these to to Twitter and Blogs makes them quite appealling.
• Social Profile - Facebook While this has potential, at the moment, it's a platform for playing games and little more, IMO.
  
• Business Profile - LinkedIN Less useful if your work experience is more free-lance and volunteer based. Great for traditional working experiences.
• Social Bookmarking - Del.icio.us YES! I need to organize my bookmarks better, but this is an under-utitilzed tool.
• Collaboration - PBWiki
• Shared Documents - Google Docs
• Photo Sharing - Flickr or PhoTrade
• Video Hosting - Blip.tv (also YouTube)

What Social Tools do you keep in your tool box? How do you use them? Which should we look at the consider further?

I also blog at: A Stitch In Time throughout the week and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

chris brogan
social toolbox

Dealing

It happened again last night. It was our weekly get-together where we are supposed to be able to share our weeks.. brag, complain, explain. Where the others should listen, sympathize and care. I've said it before. Several of the women there want (and get) attention when they are telling their tales; when I try to share my life (which is as different from theirs as their lives are from mine), they turn to small private conversations and dismiss anything I have to say.

I sat quietly last night through a rant about stupid (and illegal) things a co-worker was saying; and through a (too long) discussion of the problem one woman had at work last week that made her angry enough to cry. I GET it, I GOT it, but she went on. I tried to move the discussion along:

"I'm sorry you had a bad week, because mine was so good..." Gee, in any setting I've been in, this would be where a caring person, a friend, would says: Oh, I'd love to hear about it.

Nope. "It wasn't a bad week, it was just this bad day." and probably more about it with a strong signal that she didn't give a fuck about what my week entailed. Later in the evening, when another gal showed up and asked me about my conference, the others again turned their backs and started up a private conversation.

And they wonder why I'm reluctant to participate in weekend retreats and things. Survey most of the women there, I'll bet they can't tell you one thing about the conference I attended. Nor my excitement at just contemplating video blogging...

Hmm. I'm going to trying to cut down on the negative energy around me (not gossiping, not feeling sorry for myself, not doing the negative). These evenings might be a real challenge...

I need to make some new friends who actually care and are willing to listen.

I also blog at: A Stitch In Time throughout the week and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.

Tale of the Scale: July

Weight:128#. Looks like I'm down about another pound.

I recovered fairly quickly from last week's little misadventure. We are both thinking that the 30 minutes of cardio before the interval training was just a bit too much. It might also because I was still adjusting to returning from the trip. Especially since Guido has clients older and less in shape than I who can do the intervals for 20 minutes.

I still hate the machine. I feel like I'm falling off it all the time. But I shall persist because my Germanic nature (pure stubbornness) means I will not quit. Well, unless it makes me dizzy all the time.

Since it's hot here now, I'm heading back to the gym 5 days a week. Might as well let my monthly fee give me a couple hours of AC that's not on my electric bill; and let them pay for my shower, too. The days that I don't work out with Guido, I'm doing the cardio/interval thing (darn!) and lots of stability/core moves. I may even choose to take a class or two!! Got to start weaning myself off this trainer addiction. I come home feeling all tightened up and happy.

Speaking of which (feeling tight and happy...), there is a new weight loss drug OTC: Alli. Catherine Morgan wrote about it for BlogHer.. the comments are hysterical! This is another drug that blocks fat absorption in the gut, leaving the taker with some distasteful side effects. According to the wiki:

Because orlistat's main effect is to prevent dietary fat from being absorbed, the fat is excreted unchanged in the feces and so the stool may become oily or loose (steatorrhea). Increased flatulence is also common. Bowel movements may become frequent or urgent, and rare occurrences of fecal incontinence

Now granted, this is a take a pill and (hopefully) lose weight in a "take a pill" society. But in 8 months of exercising and weight training I've had one "episode" --last week. And all I was was dizzy and overheated. It was nothing like "fecal incontinence!" Granted, it takes more time and requires more committment, but why would anyone choose oily flatulence over a feeling of being tightened up and happy??

I don't understand.
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On a completely different vein (and to cleanse your mental palette before you travel on to other blogposts...), Guido asked me what it meant when his computer "keeps putting up this blue screen??" because he knows I am a geeky-grrl. It takes him 5-6 restarts to get his computer to boot at all. He was hoping I was tell him he had a nasty virus and tell him how to fix it.

We all know what's really happening: his computer is probably dying. And I had to deliver the bad news. (well, I did say: have you cleared cache, emptied your trash, done a defrag?)...

Geek Girl, Subpar

67% GeekMingle²




Is it wrong that I wish my score was just a little higher??