Josh's New Writing Blog (on WordPress.com)

I just started my new short story writing blog on WordPress.com called Storycrafter.

Its a little experiment I'm doing to get my creative writing juices flowing again. I've got a list of my writing ideas posted, and I would really appreciate it if you guys would just go vote for the story that you think I should write. They may all sound lame, but just help me pick one to start out with. Its free to vote and you don't have to sign up for anything. Just go to the link above and read about my story ideas, then vote for your favorite (or least crappy) idea.

Thanks alot! More soon...

Josh

Speeding Ticket Fail

I was just playing around on Failblog.org and this one was AWESOME! You just gotta watch it all the way through...



Also:
Useless sign:

see more pwn and owned pictures

Making a FavIcon, Widgets galore, Blogger hacks (Part 1)

This post is going to be a little more geeky than normal but that's what I'm all about! I promised great geek and tech tips and tricks, so here's some random stuff I've learned recently. You could call this a tutorial or a "get yo learn on".

(Note: All these hacks and customizations are so easy, a monkey's uncle could do them. They require little to no coding experience. If you can customize your MySpace page, you can add these to your blog. So don't label me an expert (yet). I'm just going to show you where I found them and the steps that I took to install them on a Blogger hosted blog. I don't know if they work with WordPress or any other blog hosting sites, but I don't see why they wouldn't...)

Here are a few cool things I have done to THE HORSE recently:

My own FavIcon!
Do a Google search for "Icons" or "Favicon" and you'll find 3 billion sites that make or host these. I personally use Chami.com's HTML-Kit FavIcon from Pics for my own hosted sites and I use IconJ for hosting for Blogger. Both do a great job of creating icons from any square image that you upload and IconJ hosts it and gives the the code right from their site!

Basically, just grab the code that IconJ gives you and the trick is to post it in your HTML or CSS template to just after the ]]></b:skin> and just before the </head> statement. Preview it and if everything looks all right, save your template. Then view your new FavIcon in a new reloaded tab! Coolness huh? I did my little old school Suction Horse logo for my FavIcon on THE HORSE (Check it out in your address bar!).

Create a Facebook Badge for your blog (or MySpace!)
This one is super easy. Just log on to your Facebook profile and go to your "Profile" page. Scroll all the way down to the bottom and look at the bottom left. There should be a link that says "Create Profile Badge" follow the instructions to customize. Then get the code and paste away! Be careful how much of your private info you want to give away to public readers though. I like it because I can update my profile pic on both Facebook and THE HORSE at the same time plus there's a link to my FB page right there!

Are there any cool blog widgets that you've discovered that I don't have? Let me know! I collect them all! The trick is to use them in good taste on your blog. I use things that help my readers and point them to interesting content and I use widgets that keep me and my readers informed about the stats of THE HORSE and my personal social media sites...

Josh

Next time: Twitter gadgets, Flickr Widgets, and a cool keyword cloud for your posts!

Ahh... Engagement, wedding planning and getting "serious".

Well, I finally decided to get up early this past Sunday and go take our engagement pictures. I think the wedding planning website (The Knot) that my fiance Andrea is using said that we were "not on schedule" with the engagement pictures, so I needed to appease the website!

We actually had a really fun day. We played hookie from church and went to Cheesecake Factory (why in the world would I want to go to work, you may ask?) for brunch. I love our brunch and I never work Sundays so I figured it couldn't hurt. We got the French Toast Napoleon (Three Slices of our Grilled Brioche French Toast Stacked with Strawberries, Pecans and Chantilly Cream) and split it with a side of scrambled eggs and hash browns. Its pretty huge just like everything else there.


After that we headed out to my favorite filming and picture taking place, Morris Avenue in downtown Birmingham. We took some shots at the famous Peanut Depot then down the street in front of the red caboose where "The Station" club is.
After that we raced down to Hoover's Aldridge Gardens to take some in a more nature type setting. Needless to say, all of them turned out really good considering they were all taken with a tripod and a timer on the camera. I was sweating from running back and forth so much when we finally left.
(Sappiness Alert below!)
I've been really enjoying this whole engagement and wedding planning thing and I've really loved getting to know my awesome, kind, forgiving, and pretty darn hot fiance Andrea. I love her a ton and she's the best thing that's ever happened to me. She keeps me in line, makes sure I don't become a slob, she loves me even when I'm an annoying nerd that won't stop talking about computers and blogs and Star Wars. She even likes to cook and clean! (She is Miss Organization!) What else could a guy ask for? I just know we're going to have a great life together and just looking at these pictures confirm that for me. Now onto the fun part! The next 6 months are going to start getting crazy but I think we can handle it. She's already got her dress, the flowers are ordered, and we've decided on a bunch of little stuff. Today I just ordered our "Save The Date / Christmas Cards" from VistaPrint which some of you may be receiving shortly. So, as you can see, its getting "serious" now, and its going to stay serious for the rest of our lives.
(Shoutout alert below:)
I love you Andrea! I'm so happy we're together! Let start our adventure together...

(To be continued...)

Family Christmas lists with Cloud Computing!

I had been reading about cloud computing a little this past month, so I thought I would test it out. The guinea pigs? MY FAMILY!



So, basically what I decided to do is put our family's Christmas wish list in a central place so everyone can access it anytime they need it. In the old days you would create a mass email and just keep "Replying to all" everytime someone added something or had a question. This could be done more easily with a web page on the internet, but then each person had to:

• know HTML
• have access to the FTP site
• have an FTP program
• know the password and login for the FTP site

etc, etc... which was fine for me, but there's no way my Luddite dad or my mom (who's still learning but getting there ;-) could ever do anything like that without a long list of procedures and hours of training. So, first I decided to try it on Facebook by creating a Group. BUT, my mom hates social networking sites. She doesn't have time for them and "stalkers will jump you on a street corner and beat you senseless" if you have a profile on MySpace. But she DOES check her email and visits webpages for news and photography. SO...



...introducing Cloud Computing and Google Docs. I created a simple Google Docs word processing document and saved it in the Google "cloud". Then I gave each family member sharing privilages so each person can type in what they want for Christmas and even put a link to a store where others can buy their gift, making it easy for everyone to buy something fun instead of the same ole same ole, underware, ties and giftcard to Wal-Mart.



Needless to say... IT WORKED! As of today everyone finished their wish list and we can all go shopping for Christmas... with money we don't have...
We're actually keeping it pretty conservative this year (under $20 or a handmade "Crafty" item).

Try it out next time you have a wishlist for multiple people. There are other cloud document platforms you can use besides Google Docs but I like Google Docs because all you have to have to sign in is your Google password. (Which everyone? has).

What do you guys think about this solution? Can you improve it? Suggestions? Please comment!

Twitter Ho

I just thought this was funny. You'll get it if you're on Twitter... If you're not then move along to dilbert below...