Going Wild

Is this the spittin' image of me, or what? Create your own here: http://www.buildyourwildself.com/. Thanks to the ever talented Flossy-P for the idea!

 

Thought of the Day #203 - Web Clutter

 

A lot of the "big hitters" on the web -- news sites (like this screen cap from today's StarTribune.com site), department store shopping like amazon.com, or portals like aol or msn.com -- are driving me batty! They're trying to be all things to all visitors and while doing so they're driving people like myself away. Column after column of information. Can you imagine trying to read a book page that was divided into five columns and throw in advertising graphics, too? Ugh.

I think we need to get back to a simpler time...when we had one jumping kitty graphic per screen. A few "BR"s and then a peeping eyeball. That's right...animated GIFs. I said it.

I'm not really serious about the animated GIFs. (If you want to see those, you can find more than you can stand over at myspace.com.)

I am, however, serious about the overload of web clutter. Clean it up, people! I plan on doing the same.

Thought of the Day #202- Photos of the Week

I posted four weeks worth of the Photo Selections of the Week today.
Yeah, I was a little bit behind. Check 'em out!

Thought of the Day #163 - Wireless Thieves

Have you ever stolen an internet connection? You know...you're in a strange place, need to check something online and you randomly find an unsecured wifi network? And you connect to it?? You know you have if you have a laptop. Admit it!

I understand that it's illegal in some places, but I'm starting to think with the extent of broadband availability throughout the country that soon we will all have free wifi unsecured networks. (Well, unless the greedy bastids (you know who you are) decide that free anything is wrong...'cuz they could make money off of you!)

If I could feel safe and not worry about greedy hackin' bastids, I would open up my connection to the general public. I use my broadband connection for work and whatnot, but I rarely use up all bandwidth that's available. If I could have ~priority~ to the bandwidth and grant free access to non-hacker types, I would. Would you??

Thought of the Day #159 - Synchronous Names

It bothers me sooooo much when my "catay" name is taken on websites as a username. I started it. It's mine, mine, mine. Ok, fine, the other "catay"s out there that are actually called "Catay" and mine is strictly a nickname, but it's almost a trademark for me now. I use it everywhere I can. A synchronous online definition of who my online persona wants to be. So, when I heard that Facebook was allowing users to create named links at EXACTLY 10:01pm, I thought...I GOTTA BE THERE! Of course, long about 11PM, I remembered. Luckily, http://www.facebook.com/catay was available. Wooooohoooo!

Thought of the Day #49

I just got that "interrupt" screen from Microsoft prompting me to download Internet Explorer 8. What??? They want to give up on fixing 7??

Photoshop Disasters - The Blog

Looking back at some of my digital manipulations, I know I've made some silly errors. Maybe that's what makes this blog, Photoshop Disasters, so dang funny! Be sure to check out Madonna's microcephalic head here. Good stuff! I should add, too, that this is a great site to send to women (or men!) struggling with body image issues. Especially those who think that cover models, celebrities, etc *really* look that way. Take this as an example.

I'm a Twit!

Not news to most of my friends and enemies for that matter. But, just to let you know, I'm Twittering on Twitter.com now. It's like text messaging...or just babbling about minute to minute thoughts. Socializing through randomness. Fun! Find me here: http://www.twitter.com/catay If you have a Twitter problem, too, please drop me a line and I will follow you...follow you whereever you go....

You can see my little Twits to the right if you are viewing this on my homepage. You can subscribe using RSS feeds or even your phone to get them as texts. Probably more "pearls" of my *ahem* wisdom than you need, but it's a fun technology and it's still just in its infancy, I believe. Get it while it's hot!

I feel...

I feel as if this site: http://www.wefeelfine.org/ may come in handy when there's a huge national disaster (or a national election, but really, what's the difference?) that causes every one to pause and blog. Right now it's just pretty amazing. Hey, but that's just how I feel.

A Skull A Day

No, it's not about horror stories from Iraq, but with a little bit of autumnal (read the start of Halloween-season) chill in the air this morning, I did hit upon a fun, albeit ghoulish site: skulladay.com

Reading and Killin' Time

I thought I really ought to post about blogs that I read with regularity. There are quite a few so I'll mention 'em at random rather than doing a "blog roll". If you want to see my "blog roll", ask for my favorites file. Here's the first recommendation... Shorpy the 100-Year-old Photo Blog. For the love of old photos! Most photos are 1930's and older. A great time killer and quite entertaining. They started publishing a scant few months ago, but their archive of pages is HUGE. If you have two hours to kill, sit back and start clickin'! I love, too, that they provide large size copies of all of the images so that you can see pretty decent detail. To help provide a "fat" angle, the woman pictured to the side of this post is proof that there were fat/chubby people long before the supposed "epidemic".

Ci-Wi Wi-Fi in the Minneapple

I remember hearing that they were going to do this several years ago. It's exciting to hear that City-Wide wireless is nearing completion in Minneapolis. At only $20 bucks a month, you really can't beat it. Maybe it'll be coming to my neck of the woods? Fat chance. :-(

Look at all of the cool people that have signed my Frappr map! Thanks, ya'll!

I've been Quantified

Ok, not really me, but catay.com has been "quantified". http://quantcast.com/catay.com

The stats that they project on there are interesting. Most of my visitors have attended college, are in the 18-24 age category and make less than 30K a year. Hopefully, when ya'll get older, that college education will do you some good! Actually, I think the stats are probably pretty bogus since there's no definitive way to quantify such things with web access. For instance, through my work, we all access the internet through one external port. 400 people, of VERY different income levels, ages and educational levels all access the internet via one IP. Unless everyone were to have a "statisitics cookie" in their browser, there's no way to track such things by IP address alone. Ah, well, it's interesting nonetheless.

Still finding more in the cracks

Putting the site back online is a bit tricky. I keep finding things that were omitted and shouldn't have been. Goddess Garden, being one of them. That's an early, early piece, but shouldn't have been overlooked. OH, and there's a new Photo Selection of the Week, too. Keeping with tradition, the Photo of the Week feature will be updated on Wednesdays.

Back online!

I moved my site recently to a new host and my blog suffered a bit. Well, not so much suffered as I wasn't able to update, nor did I know I had beautiful comments! Thanks for commenting. Ya'll are beautiful!

During the last week I:

-- mowed more lawns than I really should have. I'm trying to help out with a few of the back 40 duties. Combine the fact that I'm out of shape with hot temps, and you've got one tired girl at the end of a mowin' day. I really need to do it more often, and intend to do so to keep my body movin'!

-- attended some SharePoint Portal classes. We're upgrading to SharePoint at work. A couple of things scare me about Microsoft whenever they get their mits on web design. No, make that one thing -- THEMES. Anyone who's worked with FrontPage probably knows about these beasts. What's really scary is that 8 years(about that anyway) after they came out with their ugly FrontPage themes, they really haven't improved when it comes to SharePoint themes. Butt ugly. Granted, SharePoint doesn't have the ugly "candy" or "road kill" theme, but seriously, their themes are still ugly enough to guarantee that simple web designers like me will continue to have a job.

...more later! Have a good day!

Bunch of Old Stuff

I put up a bunch of my original photo collections back on the main page of my site: http://www.catay.com/

Snoopy, Charlietown, Fat Chick’s Right to Bare Arms, etc.  Thought some of ya might like to  know.

My Space

Am I the ~only~ one that thinks that My Space is a giant style vacuum? It’s an ugly, annoying, personalized cross between Yahoo Groups and Geocities sites. So, of course I had to have one. Well, only so I could join a friend of mine’s site. You know give the rah-rah-support-ya-tons in this ugly venture kind of prop. Luckily, I have no idea what the login was. Bottom line, can we delete My Space now? Its 15 minutes has come and gone. Pull the plug!!

Webinars and Seminars

I'm stuck in a "webinar" right now. It's one of those presentation type webinars where the first half hour is an advertisement for the company that's hosting. If I were queen of the world, advertising at the beginning of seminars/webinars would be illegal. Luckily it *is* a webinar and I'm able to go off and browse around when the presenters are repetitive, boring and or wearing too much the used-car-salesman cologne.

And I thought it was just two cents!

My blog is worth $2,822.70.
How much is your blog worth?

A feature to my site...

Sometimes, you just need to know your fortune. Use carefully and be wise. (I designed this for a different site, but it's too fun to keep locked up!)

Is Anyone Out There?

If so, where the heck are ya? The silence is deafening. Let me know you're there by putting yourself on my map. http://www.frappr.com/catay My friend Bobber sent me info on this a while ago. I wonder if he'll get on the map? Hmmm? Anyway, it's a fun little free program. I hope to see you "out there".