i-want.socialgo.com

(And now for something a little different…)

There isn’t much that I feel I need
A solid soul and the blood I bleed
With a little girl, and by my spouse
I only want a proper house

When I was in college, I was obsessed with music of all kinds. There was music playing almost constantly in my dorm room and, later, in my apartment. There are so many songs out there that speak to the problems and angst of that age, and I reveled in them.

I’m now thirty one years old. My primary concern today is my family – but that’s not exactly a concern for most mainstream music. Although I still listen, it’s often mostly background music for the things I’m doing. The lyrics don’t speak to me much any more.

With a few exceptions of course.

My favorite song for the past year or so has been My Girls by Animal Collective. Here’s the video:

Few songs really match where I’m at now in life like this one does. Add on top of it the fact that it’s really catchy (listen to it three times and you’ll not be able to get it out of your head – there’s a reason it was the number one song of 2009 as noted by Pitchfork).

Here are my girls.

They (and that blurry boy) are the center of my life right now – not material things, not anything else. My spending and personal choices revolve around that simple fact, and this song captures that feeling almost perfectly.

If you like the song, I encourage you to give the whole album a listen. You can pick up the mp3 of My Girls for $0.99 from Amazon, too.

I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things
Like our social stats
I just want four walls and adobe slats
for my girls

Chrome/Firefox/Safari: Want proof that HTML5 is the way of the future? Try Sketchpad, a surprisingly robust online painting app that doesn't require Flash, Shockwave, or any other plug-in—just a modern browser and a mouse.

Run by a team that dubs themselves Colorjack, this "Sketchpad" demo shows off the capabilities of modern JavaScript and HTML5 support. You can paint any color in any shade or opacity, take on patterns and "Spirographs," and use all the tools you're likely familiar with from Microsoft's older versions of that old Paint standby.

Sketchpad also offers a handful of control windows you can move around and keep open. If the app supported drag-and-drop file imports, as Firefox 3.6 does, this would be a truly robust, and almost desktop-replacing, webapp.

When you're done with your efforts, hit the save icon and your image pops up in a new tab, ready to be saved. Sketchpad is free to use, and works on any browser that supports HTML5—including, it's been suggested, in some mobile devices, though we had very little luck actually painting with an iPod touch and Android device.

Got one of those Toyotas with the "sticky" gas pedal? Maybe a just-recalled Prius? Don't trade in your car or panic if your dealer's booked through next week. Here's a few tips from the experts on saving money and driving safely.

First off, if you're not sure whether your Toyota might be part of the recall or not, here's the read-out. 2010-model Prius hybrids are soon to be called in for a fix to the anti-lock brake software. Toyota's own recall page has the lengthy details and model list. Otherwise, here's CNNMoney's thumbnail of the list:

Which cars are involved? The stuck-pedal recall of 2.3 million vehicles announced last week affects Toyota's 2009-2010 RAV4, Corolla and Matrix models; the 2005-2010 Avalon; 2010 Highlander; 2007-2010 Tundra and the 2008-2010 Sequoia; and some 2007-2010 Camrys (only those with gas pedal assemblies made by a specific Toyota supplier; your dealer can check). No Lexus or Scion models are involved.

Toyota's starting to send out mailers to affected car owners announcing the recall and providing fix details, but Canada's CTV notes that it may not reach if you've moved since your car purchase, and it's up to you to get in line for a fix, and update your address for future recalls and notices:

The requirement is that the manufacturer send the notice to the address in their record. If you moved or are the second owner of the car, you might not get the notice, even if you bought the car at the dealer of the same brand. They don't have to find you, and they won't look.

So how do I get in contact with the manufacturer to get my address updated?

The dealer can do it. They may have a customer service phone number that will allow you to do it.

Toyota's certainly taking a hit in the media, and the public's long-admiring eye, for having to issue these safety recalls. If you feel like you might want to trade in your recalled Toyota to try and escape a declining value, don't do it—at least, not yet. Kelley Blue Book and ALG valuations will likely drop 5 percent over the life of the recall, and the New York Times' Bucks blog notes that now is not the time to trade in. Why? An Edmunds.com consumer advice editor notes that trade-in prices are going to be at significant lows right now, but will recover:

"After the recall of Ford Explorers earlier this century because of tire failures, the resale values of the models dropped 2 to 3 percent or so initially and then gradually caught up again five to six months later, according to a preliminary Kelley Blue Book analysis."

So, the best advice for recalled Toyota owners is to call your dealer and make an appointment for a fix (how surprising, huh?). Still, what if you need to drive your car in the meantime, and you're worried about having your own "unintended acceleration" moment? CTV offers an emergency stopping maneuver you can test out:

Our recommendation is to drive on an empty stretch of road, then put your foot to the floor. You do it for a second or two and then shift into neutral.

It's going to sound very noisy because your engine will be racing. When that happens, take your foot off the gas and bring your car to a stop gently.

After you're done practicing, you should use this technique in case of sudden acceleration while you drive. Do not try to fight the car while it is in gear.

Do you own a Toyota that's been recalled, going to be recalled, or has already received its fix? Tell us about your experience, and any lessons learned, in the comments. Second image by KOMUnews.

Android: There's no built-in means of syncing bookmarks to your Android phone, unless you open and enter each one. Interactive bookmarklets, too, are generally a no-go. With the MyBookmarks app installed, you can sync bookmarks and install (most) bookmarklets in Android's browser.

To put it simply, you download MyBookmarks from the Android Market to your phone, then run it. You'll get a long string of numbers as your unique ID, and have the option to wipe out all your existing Android bookmarks. Before you hit another button on your phone, export all your bookmarks from your desktop browser to an HTML file, enter in that numeric code your received on your phone, then upload that file to MyBookmarks' webapp in your desktop browser. You can, of course, edit and remove unnecessary bookmarks from the HTML file, provided you're handy with the syntax.

On your phone, you can now hit "Import your bookmarks from RerWare.com," and it looks for the latest HTML file uploaded under your ID number. When it matches up, you can import them all at once, or approve each bookmark, one by one. When you're done, you're done—all your approved bookmarks and bookmarklets are loaded in your browser.

As far as which bookmarklets work and which don't, those that mostly pass information between sites—Evernote, Readability/Instapaper, and translation tools—seem to work, while those that activate the browser's pop-up input window seem stuck in the mud. Still, something is better than nothing, since Android's browser doesn't let you natively save bookmarks without some kind of http:// at the front, and most bookmarklets start with just javascript:.

MyBookmarks is a free download for Android systems, and it's made by the same crew as the MyBackup tools, so it doesn't seem like an attempt to steal your private bookmark data. Still, go ahead and edit out any bookmarks out of your export file that you don't feel like making semi-public.

Know of a more elegant bookmark syncing solution for Android phones? Tell us about it in the comments.

Now that I’m trying to make money as a content provider and as a blogger, my entire world view has changed.  Take Sarah Palin.  I’m talking about Sarah Palin the book seller.  I love Sarah Palin the book seller.

Image via Wikipedia

I’m not trying to sell anything from my personal blog.  I wonder if I’m making a mistake.  Are you using your blog to sell anything? 

Sarah Palin sure knows how to stay in the spotlight.  How can we keep our blogs and our words in the spotlight?  How can we stay on the first pages of the search engines?

I do a lot of reading about successful bloggers.  By successful, I mean bloggers that earn their living online.  I don’t see myself making a living from the Internet.  I just want to supplement my social security check.  And just about every successful blogger I read about uses his or her blog to sell something: e-books, T-shirts, pottery, something…

What do I have to sell?  What do you have to sell?

I tried to sell my self-published book, a print and an e-book version.  I was humiliated.  A man can only take so much!  I poured my guts out into that book!  I sweated blood to put life in all of its rot and glory on the page!  Life in all its…I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.  Let me take a moment to compose myself…

Anyway, I don’t know what else I have to offer, as a blogger and a content provider, to the online community.  I guess words and sweat don’t count for much…What a minute.  People read my work.  They read it every day.  Maybe that’s what we all have to offer: our words and our sweat.

Every blogger and content provider can offer that.

Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette is my blog.