Another Crazy Week, More Fun To Be Had

Last week I had an interview with Tekserve, “New York’s premiere authorized Apple Reseller and Service provider”. They were the Apple store in New York City before Apple opened up their own flagship stores. They’re a great company and I even got my current MacBook Pro from them. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the job. But as they say, when one door closes another window opens. That same night I was told of another job opportunity and hopefully that will yield better results.

Before I got my email regarding my job application rejection, I was of course recording another episode of “The Mundane Chatter Podcast” (available here) and spending most of that night editing it and getting the show ready to post. The following day, Thursday, I noticed that I was having RSS feed validation issues and spent most of that day tinkering with it and finally figured out the solution. If that wasn’t enough to keep me away from blogging this week, yesterday was the beginning of the annual Keith and The Girl Standup and meetup events (which I won a SuperPass for. Yay me!).

Every year on April 15, fans of this well-known podcast meet up around the birthday of the host, Keith Malley, and witness his once a year stand-up performance. He’s had 7 consecutive performances thus far (they’re recorded as albums which you can get at their online store).  Circling this night are other events that are set up to keep these fans entertained throughout the week. Last night was Karaoke night. I’ve never done Karaoke before and I attempted and mumbled through “A Blister in the Sun” by the Violent Femmes. It was a hell of a blast.

Tonight is of course Keith Malley’s standup which I’m eagerly awaiting as I type up this entry. Saturday will be a rendition of Matchgame and Sunday caps of this year of events with the first ever Roast of Keith and the Girl. It’s going to be a hell of a weekend of events. But I couldn’t let this stop me from getting at least one more blog entry up this week for you guys.

I also promise to get another article done this weekend for the ezine I’m working on, for the next issue. If you haven’t subscribed to it yet you can do so at the KingDeems’s NoF Portal blog. Anyway, let me go get ready for tonight’s event!

Google Sites Isn’t For Me

I’m currently using WordPress.com for my blog as well as for my podcast but I was wondering if there were other free website options where I would have more control. The main thing I would like to do is to be able to add Google AdSense, Google Analytics and of course PayPal donation buttons. With this in my mind I thought I would try out Google Sites as a possible alternative.

At first, I wasn’t sure how to navigate around my options or add pages, etc. But once I got the hang of it I was able to make a decent page. Alas, there wasn’t a way to integrate a blog option into the site which is key for a blog or podcast. With this limitation that pretty much made Google Sites a non-option for me.

I then decided to fool around with Apple’s  iWeb. I have a Mac so the software is at the palm of my fingertips and of course I use MobileMe so why not. The problem with iWeb as I find with a lot of Apple products is it’s need to keep you insulated within the Apple ecosystem. In order to publish a page from iWeb, you need MobileMe and the only RSS feed you can use is the one that’s generated by iWeb which is of course linked to MobileMe. Forget the fact that I already have my own RSS feed via Feedburner or that I upload my audio files somewhere other than my MobileMe account. If I want to make a podcast website with iWeb it’s pretty much all or nothing. I opted for nothing.

So for now, WordPress.com is my free website builder of choice for all my creative needs. I was at least able to incorporate a PayPal option to my podcast’s site with a lone PayPal page via iWeb. I guess I did find some workaround to the “all or nothing” philosophy of the iLife group of products.

Embracing My Inner Mac Fanboy

I’ve spent quite a bit of money on Apple with my annual membership fees of MobileMe since the days of dot mac and after much time exerted on trying to resist using all of its functions I’ve decided to embrace it whole-heartedly.  Part of the reason of course is the money. If I spend $99/year for a service, I might as well use it to its fullest. The other reason is Google’s exponential growth these past few years.  It just seems that they are spreading their tendrils on every bit of technology available and with the fact that they’re in the business of selling information for ads and my  sudden urge to limit how much exposure I have on the grid, it just seemed like the right time to switch from Gmail to MobileMe.

Also, as it may not be all too clear, my constant fiddling with technology is all for a single-minded purpose and that’s of course convenience and minimizing functions. And since I have an iPhone and MobileMe works seamless with it vs. Gmail it was just much easier to make this decision. Why it took me this long to come to this decision? Various reasons of course. One was that I was trying to weed out of MobileMe initially. But now I’m embracing the fact that I’ll most likely never use a non-mac platform for personal use again, if I can help it.  It has been the simplest and most pain-free computer experience that I’ve had all my life and even though it comes at a premium, most conveniences are at a price.

Just look at cell phone services. The cheapest one is T-Mobile. But the best overall mobile phone and data service in New York City is Verizon. So do you save money and risk dropped calls and faulty internet connection on your cell or do you just pay for pain-free service? At the moment I have AT&T but that’s because of the iPhone (obviously). And with the rumors that the iPhone will be launched under the Verizon platform pretty soon, I’ll look forward to switching to even better service as soon as my contract expires.

So no more Windows and no more dreaming of the possibilities of Linux once I get around to learning how to use it.  Just Apple all the way, with it’s exclusive-all-encompassing yet simple to use service.  Now to bask in my convenience and ease of use.