Experiment, Georgia
What else would you call sending 2 Los Angeles natives to a NASCAR event? I’d call it a science experiment, or maybe an anthropological endeavor, well I’d call it a lot of things but; Experiment, Georgia is the actual name of the town.
Just south of Hampton, GA and well south of Atlanta, GA. Experiment is the stereotypical Georgia experience – Not quite suburb and not quite rural. There is a Walmart, Chik-fil-a and about 12 Waffle Houses. And of course the whole reason I was there was the Atlanta Motor Speedway and the annual Labor Day NASCAR race.
Here are few fun facts about the Atlanta Motor Speedway, it was at one time the fastest running track in all of NASCAR. Meaning drivers could get those wheels to go faster on this track then any of the others in the NASCAR circuit. Also, The opening scenes of the classic Smokey and the Bandit II were filmed at the track. What could be better then a Burt Reynolds sequel movie that was filmed at the Atlanta Motor Speedway!
If you know me, you know I enjoy a cool car as much as the next guy – but I have no interest in NASCAR. I am sure it is real tough on those drivers and they need all kinds of skill and talent – but I live in and commute daily in LOS ANGELES. So I am not really impressed by someone driving a car in a semi-circle.
Check me out, I just put my Jetpack on.
Automattic just released a new cloud-based set of utilities for WordPress self-hosted Blogs; Like this one. So how is this different then the current Plugins that are available? All of the tools that make up Jetpack are hosted via WordPress.com, so there is nothing to download, no Plugin updates with every new release of WP.
So Jetpack is a set of widgets with a cool logo? In a matter of speaking yes, but these are nicely grouped to make Jetpack a simple one stop shop for some of the most popular utilities. For example you get WordPress stats, a Twitter Widget, WP.me Shortlinks and one of my favorites After the Deadline which helps you write better by adding spell, style, and grammar checking to WordPress.
There is something that makes me think this is a move by Automattic to monetize the free and widely available WordPress platform. On each of the modules of Jetpack there is a little “Free” tag, of course most of these tools are available in some shape or form as free widgets or Plugins developed by 3rd parties. 
So I am guess at some point we will see a small cost associated with some of the more robust tools, possibly a move to scale to enterprise offering. Alternately this could be Automattic’s version of an App Store for the 32.5 million downloads of WP. A smart move since WordPress is used by over 13% of the 1,000,000 biggest websites.
Thelonious ate my blog.
WordPress 3.0 (aka Thelonious) was just released from it’s release candidate phase. I like the lightweight Dashboard and the added Navigation functionality. But with the Update most of the Theme customizations and Plugins I’ve made got thrown out of the window.
So I guess this means I will be spending some additional time on the site – rearranging and re-customizing.
Details on the new WP release below….
The Oatmeal is right.
The cartoon / satire site The Oatmeal recently posted a comic titled “8 Websites You Need To Stop Building.”
I personally like #5, while you see fewer and fewer “Social Media Experts” there are still way to many snake oil sales men out there.
I’ve actually been asked, “But how come your facebook page status is not updated?”
Simple, I prefer to work at a higher level, spending my time working on larger strategies for mass audience acquisition and appeal – hard to do if you are unable to see the forest for the trees. I’m not as concerned about my personal daily participation in Social Media as much as I am understanding users, customers and making some money while doing it.
The Contract-Free iPhone is here and that means a new iPhone is coming
According to Gizmodo, Apple has sent out an internal document announcing the iPhone is now available without an AT&T contract at any Apple Store. This means you can take your phone to at least T-Mobile in the US, but it’s up to you to unlock it.
The prices break down with the iPhone 3G 8GB going for $499, the iPhone 3GS 16GB comes to $599 and for the top 32GB model you’ll have to pay $699.
This is not a new move by Apple; in fact we’ve seen this before and I think that it signifies there is a new iPhone on the horizon!
Intro: SEO your own name
Part 1 of a series where I will track my steps to properly Page Rank the domain and myself.
I know that I am not alone; in fact there are several other Kyle Ellis(es) out there in the world. I know because I’ve Goggled my own name, its OK to admit that you’ve done it too.
Things started getting awkward when coworkers would send me links to the 3 year old kid who had a tracheotomy. I felt bad for the little guy because he clearly had health issues but I was also a little mad that his parent bought the domain before I could. I recall thinking “Hey I’ve been Kyle Ellis longer then this kid, I should be able to claim my right to the domain.” Ok, that might be a little misplaced entitlement.
Years went by and my professional career began to take shape; I had been interviewed by Billboard Magazine, quoted by the Los Angeles Times, among others. Each time I was asked a common Press question “do you have a bio or a personal website.” While the bio was easy enough to forward along, I would recall the little kid with my name and the sad photos his parents posted online.
I wanted my name back and simply wanted to take control of my own personal brand, so I made a concerted effort to check the renewal date on the domain kyleellis.com. I did this every time I happened to be purchasing another domain, which was often. The strategy paid off and I was able to grab the domain while the registration had lapsed, or more likely the little kid with the same name got older and didn’t want his baby pictures online for the world to see.
I won! Or so I had thought… Check the Project: SEO page for updates.
WordPress Gets Real-Time With PubSubHubbub
WordPress.com powers alot of blogs, millions and all those blogs are about to get a new real-time feature, thanks to alot of Hubbub.
WordPress recently announced that the company has pushed support for PubSubHubbub live, a new technology that will push blog content to RSS and ATOM services much more quickly.
This is a very clever way to allow WordPress blogs to distribute content as it’s published to 3rd party services, rather than waiting for those services to check each feed for new posts. It’s on and live for all WordPress.com blogs, though self-hosted blogs must add a simple plugin, here to go real-time with this feature.
PubHubSubbub as highlighted in the video above. However those of you who want to find out more about the new protocol can do so over at the PuSH project site, here.
Playstation 3 plays with Netflix Watch Instantly
As Sony continues to makes moves to ensure the PlayStation 3 is winning the console wars, the system has finally started to find its niche as an all-in-one home media system. Today, Netflix has announced the new Netflix support and is accepting Pre-orders of the required disc and the PlayStation Blog also announced that Netflix is coming to US-based PlayStation 3’s but added an additional time line of next month.
The PlayStation 3 will join an ever-increasing number of devices that support Netflix Watch Instantly streaming. Last year, Microsoft and Netflix announced a partnership that brought Netflix support to the Microsoft X-Box 360 console. Netflix support on the X-Box 360 and on stand-alone players like the ROKU box, TiVo or Blu-ray players (like the LG Blu-Ray player) has been typically software based, with the software hardwired into the system’s firmware. This means that the devices almost always ships to retailers with the Netflix Watch Instantly feature already built in.
Brasil 2014 e Rio 2016
As many of you already know from previous posts part of spending time in Brazil was to launch a new travel site to build on Brazil’s growing tourism industry. While many millions of people travel to Brazil, few first time travelers are able to find comfortable accommodations with international standards. It is not because they don’t exist, but it is largely a symptom of an emerging market and simple cultural differences. Travelers from North America and Europe rely heavily on the internet to find and book travel, while Brazilians often still use Travel Agents and retail outlets. I would imagine that with these 2 high profile events, Brazil’s Travel industry will quickly modernize and find ways of using the web and mobile to facilitate easier travel.
How to solve the PS3 DNS ERROR 80710102
So with a new wireless network comes a new router to configure. I chose a Netgear RangeMax Dual Band N Router, it looks cool and has a Startrek like blue LED button on the top of it with alternating lights while it runs – what more could you ask for? Um – If anyone else is considering making this same purchase, learn from my mistake – the router features a rather misleading name. The router doesn’t support true dual-band wireless-N, and offers OK range at best. It’s a basic router with two separate access points, one of which supports Wireless-N and can operate in either 2.4GHz or 5GHz frequencies, while the other is a regular 802.11G 2.4GHz. The result is that when in dual-band mode the router is able to offer Wireless-N only in the 5Ghz frequency, while the 2.4Ghz frequency is maxed out at the 802.11G speed. Which is fine for me and helps (I think) cut through interference on the 2.4GHz channels for critical media.
After connecting all of the required wires I launch the Router page and start the config. First I replace the ISP DNS with the OpenDNS, this ISP is notorious for lagging “waiting for domain.com” issues.
I launch all of the machines that will be on this network and I immediately encounter both the PS3 “DNS ERROR 80710102″ and the OSX error “Your wireless network appears to have been compromised…” These are 2 semi-well documented issues with anecdotal work-arounds supplied by mostly other end users.
The steps I’ve taken to make my specific issues disappear, after the jump.
