So, you rebooted your Mac and now it’s missing its Bluetooth module? Try rebooting first. If that doesn’t solve the problem, here’s what to do:
That’s it. You’ve successfully reset the PRAM and the Bluetooth should be working… If not, time to visit the Genius Bar.
Sit down, Grasshoppah. It’s time to learn some desktop shortcuts and cheats to slice and dice your way through Google Plus. Be warned, these shortcuts will increase your sex appeal tenfold. Promise.*
There are many options and features you can use while posting a comment or a post. Here are a few.
Text formatting
Format your text using the following characters. Place special characters at the beginning and the end of a word you wish to treat.
Bonus Options
Hopefully, this info will help you navigate G+ on your desktop. If you have other tips or suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments.
*Claims about sex appeal are grossly exaggerated. In all actuality, your nerd-factor will exponentially increase while sex appeal may decrease or slightly increase at a comic convention.
Searching for posts and interesting profiles on Google Plus is not easy, but it’s possible. Here are two tips to help you find users that share interests with you or posts about a particular subject. I’ve also added a Chrome hack to automate these searches.
Use the power of Google Search to browse other Google Plus users’ public posts. Here’s the string you’ll need to put in Google: site:plus.google.com inurl:posts/ keyword
This tells Google to search plus.google.com with “/posts” in the URL and a specific keyword or key phrase.
You want to find posts about cute cats. Don’t we all? Here’s the string you’d put into Google: site:plus.google.com inurl:posts/ “cute cats”. Here are the results. Note: the quotes are only needed for key phrases. If the cuteness of the kitty is irrelevant, your search would be site:plus.google.com inurl:posts/ cats. Meow!
I have a friend that has authored several books about tarot. He’s very interested in connecting with other folks into tarot.
Here’s the magic string. http://www.google.com/search?q=tarot&tbs=prfl:e&safe=strict
This string searches Google Plus for profiles that mention tarot. It’s not precise, but it should satisfy your inner-voyeur.
To make this search about your favorite topic (knitting, naked scuba diving, planking, etc), change the keyword in the string and paste in your address bar. http://www.google.com/search?q=keyword&tbs=prfl:e&safe=strict
With a few tweaks of Chrome’s settings, you can make searching for posts or profiles an easy task. With these tweaks, we’ll setup two, special search engines for Chrome that will allow you to stalk to your heart’s content.
To setup the two options, you’ll need to access Chrome’s settings (chrome://settings/searchEngines). Once you access the settings, you’ll input the info found below in the Other Search Engines area.
To enable search for Google Plus Posts
To enable search for Google Plus Profiles
Once you’ve had an opportunity to make these changes, you can search in the Chrome address bar by typing “post” or “profile”, then press [tab] key and enter the keyword to search. If you want something more memorable than “post” or “profile”, you can personalize Column 1 and Column 2 for each type of search.
Give it a test and begin stalking. Remember, it rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again.
“Oh shit! Someone added me to a Circle.” I’ve seen similar exclamations and expressions on Google Plus over the last few days. Generally followed by a panic of “What do I do now?”
It’s a valid concern with several options. In reality, the simplest answer is: don’t do a thing.
First, let’s clear something up. If someone adds you to their Circle and you do nothing, they aren’t privy to everything you post. They can only see what you post to the Public Circle. So, feel free to post that cute picture of your sweet, drooling baby to your Family and Close Friends Circles. Those Circles are the only ones that will see that chubby face covered in saliva. Your slobbery goodness is safe… Safe unless you post to the Public option.
So, what if someone Circles you and you think they seem interesting, funny, sexy, relevant, or [insert criteria here for sharing your personal life with a stranger]? You can add them to a Circle specifically for that type of person. In my case, they fall under Friends: Acquaintances or People: [Insert Category]. You might name the Circle Sexy Stalkers, Makes Me Pee My Pants Laughing, or I Don’t Know Him But I’m Working On It. Your Circle names will differ. After all, Plus puts you in control of how you share and with whom. If they really make you pee your pants and you like that, you can eventually drag them to your most cherished Circle: Baby Daddy or Baby Mama.
“Oh shit! My stalker Circled me!”
What if a psycho ex-lover or a rabid fan decides to Circle you. You may want to block them from seeing any content you publish. There’s an easy fix for that. Simply visit the page of the unnamed, crazy psycho, Alex, that boiled your rabbit and choose Block. The option is right there under their profile picture they took outside your bedroom window last night. With that done, you can publicly share that you’re “sitting in the loo” to the Public Circle and the stalker has no clue you’re in such a vulnerable position. Crisis averted! Pee in peace, please.
Now, wipe your brow, shake it off, and start encircling those sexy strangers on the Web. There’s rabbit stew to brew.
If you don’t already know about Google Plus, it’s clear you’ve been watching too much of the Casey Anthony trial. Google Plus (G+ or +) is Google’s attempt to unify most of its web-based applications by socializing them. With growing integration into Google Docs, Reader, Search, and more, Google Plus is already poised to be the Facebook-killer. Throw in Hangouts, a video chat feature, and Gmail, and some are already calling Google Plus the winner in the social media war. Yes, it’s that effective—even in beta.
One of the unique features about Google Plus is Circles. Circles act like categories for your friends, family, clients, acquaintances, and other people. That’s a brief, but effective description of a powerful feature.
When you add a person on Google Plus, you must add them to a Circle. Unlike adding as a friend on Facebook or following on Twitter, you must add them to Circles which immediately creates a system of categorization. Google went a step further and allows you to add a person to multiple Circles/categories.
Why categorize your social contacts? If you think of Google Plus as “social email” it starts to make more sense. Generally, when using email, you don’t inundate your family with web hosting specials, and you don’t spam your clients with the latest Internet memes about Keanu Reeves or cats. Sure, you might be guilty of sending Sad Keanu to a client or your Mom, but that’s not typical of most email users. Yet, it’s abundant on social sites like Facebook and Twitter where post-to-all is the default.
Still, it’s not just about you and your presumed awesomeness. Categorizing your contacts allows you to better consume the incoming content provided by your Circles. Tired of seeing the “social media experts” filling your feed with the latest and greatest trends to get more friends and followers? Drag them to a Circle and read that Circle when you feel compelled. Circles allow you to view content from those you drop in specific Circles. Your stream is now categorized using your own nomenclature.
So, where do you begin with Circles? There’s quite a bit about Circles on the Internet—including productivity hacks. Before you go crazy with pro tips, it helps to get the basic foundation in place. I’m not saying my Circles are the way to go, but sometimes it helps to see what others are doing.
Here’s a current screenshot of my Circles.
I took this approach based on my reality. I tend to have three, core circles: family, friends, and clients. So, I started with those. As I began encircling more people, I realized more Circles were needed. So, I broke them down by interest or involvement: acquaintances, LGBTQ, creatives, design, photography, music, and political. After creating those Circles, I realized I sometimes post information that’s pertinent to my current location. So, I added a Location Circle and will eventually expand those to regions and countries. Of course, there are other people I wouldn’t necessarily consider friends like “social media experts” and famous people. They get their own Circles.
Why go through all this trouble? For me it’s not trouble. I do this with my Contacts on my desktop, notebook, iPad, and phones. It’s how I do things already, but it was too cumbersome on other social networks.
Mostly, I post publicly. I’m not a very secretive person or worried about Skynet becoming sentient; if someone’s “stalking” me on Google or other social media sites that says more about them than me. Still, I’m aware that some content is very targeted. I can use these Circles to deliver content to the right groups of clients, friends or acquaintances without spamming all Circles. A post about an event in Mississippi is likely not of interest to my friends out-of-state or overseas. Why bother them with irrelevant content?
As noted earlier, these Circles also allow me to stay up-to-date with friends by interest. I can quickly access my Family Circle to keep up-to-date with my family or see if anyone in my Client Circle has specific needs I might be able to aid.
Without doubt, Circles will greatly improve how we communicate on the social web and allow each of us to deliver relevant content to our Circles. Granted, there will be people who will consistently post to the Public Circle, but that doesn’t stop the overall effectiveness of Circles when used correctly. Hint. Hint.
That’s how I’m using Circles. How are you using them?
A timeless and inspiring video by BeliefDesign.com. Worth watching for any creative.
Belief Design – Chain Reaction from Alex Fuerst on Vimeo.
This inspirational video from BeleifDesign.com challenges the creative mind to think forward and differently. There is a slew of great inverviews from successful, esatbilshed artists.
Ubiquity for Firefox
I admit it. I’ve never been a huge Firefox fan. I know I can debug web pages and CSS. I know I can validate my code in my browser. I know I can even FTP and StumbleUpon right from Firefox. But, Firefox was notoriously slow and buggy on Macs for so long, I simply gave up.
When I browse, I rarely need all those bells and whistles; when I develop, I work in Dreamweaver, Safari, and a text editor. So, really, Firefox usually collects dust in my Applications directory.
Until now.
Ubiquity for Firefox may be the killer-app, er extension, I’ve needed to make Firefox my default browser.
What is Ubiquity? The overall goals of Ubiquity are to explore how best to:
Hmmm. That wasn’t very helpful. Let me try to summarize that direct quote from the Ubiquity page. The extension allows you to quickly access useful functions using simple text. Want to translate something? Trigger Ubiquity and type translate good evening to spanish. It presents you with the translation. Want to map an address? Trigger the plugin and type the address. Voil√†! There’s your map.
Here’s a quick list of what you can currently do with Ubiquity:
Think of it like Quicksilver for the web… As a routine, advanced user of Quicksilver, I foresee Ubiquity becoming a daily part of my computing life. So, what are you waiting for? Give it a try!
Twitter is a newer obsession of mine. I’ve had an account for quite some time, but never really got into it. With the design of my site now interacting more with social sites, I decided to give it a go. Once you tweet a few times, it can be a little addictive. Microblogging. Easy.
So, for all those familiar with Twitter, the following video should be hilarious. It may even be funny for non-Tweetheads.
So, what did you think?
Watch the Trailer for the LCD Soundsystem Documentary
January 13, 2012
Pardon?
January 13, 2012
Hilarious: Fotoshop by Adobé
January 12, 2012
Car Porn: Volvo Concept Universe
January 12, 2012
The rules of a creator’s life
January 12, 2012
Speaking in Code
2 Comment
Art Meets Global Warming
2 Comment
Hal 9000
1 Comment