Evidently, the last upgrade I did on this site killed it. I have recovered the site to an old date, but it seems that almost all of my recent posts have been lost 
I’m working to restore them and try to get back on the posting cycle soon.
Andy
Just a quick note to let you know that Green Eggs and Spam has moved from WordPress.com to http://www.grneggs.com
Yes, that’s right, Green Eggs and Spam is now on it’s own site thanks to a little “luck!”
If you have the site bookmarked, you may want to change it, but the good folks at WordPress.com are helping me out by redirecting you to the new blog if you forget.
If you subscribed via email or RSS, you will need to resubscribe at the new site by clicking the link to the right of the page.
BTW, if you click the link and don’t see this post, well, then it worked the way it was supposed to 
8:51am – Well BarCamp is here. I decided to start a little “live blog” to document my day. We are just getting started and voting for presentations will start. I don’t know if I will get to present yet, but we will see.
9:05am – Voting using SimplyVoting.com is MUCH better than paper. Now I get to wait to see if I made the cut.
9:43am – In a session titled “Using Behavioral Psychology to Improve Your Website & Business.” with David Williams. Interesting listening to how we “trick” ourselves into doing things we would not ordinarily do. We also apply patterns where none exist. We feel we have “control” of the situation and we do not recognize change as it occur. Interesting presentation. As soon as I have the slide share links, I will post them. By the way, if you are online now, check out this Ustream link
10:26am – In Dick Pepper’s session on Building a Mobile App in 30 Minutes. I didn’t know hybrid apps were so easy to develop. I am thinking about getting into app development now. I need to get a bit better with java, but it doesn’t seem that hard. Look out world, more junk apps on the way
11:00am – OH NO, I am up next. I’ll post how it goes later. Wish me luck.
12:15pm – Eating a great lunch. I am pleased with my presentation. I had a good fro up with lots of great interactions. They may rate me horribly, but I think it went really well. I will post a full post with the content, but if you’d like to see the slides, go over to slideshare.com and search for AndyG1128 and the presentation, How Social Media Has Changed the Way We Buy and Sell. Now to finish this great catfish and hushpuppies.
12:45pm – We got to see a mini version of IgniteMemphis. Also listening to ConnectMemphis discuss the push to help all Memphis bloggers connect. Also seeing a presentation to EmergeMemphis. A proclamation from the Governor proclaiming next week as international entrepreneurship week. Also hearing how the state is looking to expand entrepreneurship and small business in Tennessee. It sounds like Tennessee is serious about promoting business.
2:50pm – Sitting around in the hallway between sessions talking about geek stuff, and getting ready for the last presentation of the day. We are going to give our talk on location based services. You may still be able to see the ustream at the link above.
4:04pm – Just got through with the 3pm session with Aaron and Rachel. I think we had a slow start, but the crowd interacted well and we went forward. Lots of good ideas and a possible business idea was hatched. More about that another time. I hope to have a post detailing the session we did later. Now they are giving away door prizes. Maybe I’ll get one, but probably not.
4:22pm – Well, that’s a wrap. I ended up with no door prizes, but that ok. It was a fun and educational day and there aren’t many places you can go and leave saying that. I will have several follow up posts from this, but for now, I am signing off.
Stalking the 901:Location Based Services
First, it was “poking,” and we thought it was cute and poked away. Next came “Status Updates,” and we fell in love with the idea of telling people about our lives 140 characters at a time. Then, IT happened…sites and applications became aware of your location via embedded GPS, Cell tower, and Wi-Fi devices and the “Check-in” was born. Since its birth only a few years ago, location based social networks have grown at a phenomenal rate. Like many new technologies, it was slightly ahead of the curve, but now business, BIG business, is catching up to the notion that knowing where their customers are and where they have BEEN could change the way business gets done. Join Aaron, Rachel, and Andy as they discuss the birth, evolution, and possibilities of location based services and how it will impact you, both professionally and personally.
How Social Networks have changed how we decide to buy and sell
Where do you go to help decide what and where to buy? Before social networks, we would turn to our family and tight circle of friends. Today, we are just as likely to turn to the crowd. How has this changed the way we buy and how business is done.
How do you use a ‘Magical’ device?
Now that the iPad has been out for a while, some people are still struggling to find a place in their workflow for this “magical” device. This session hopes to give you some help in determining where the iPad fits in to it everyday workflow.
It seems the “Powers That Be” at WordPress.com have decided to grant us the ability to use Twitter’s Blackbird Pie feature in our WordPress.com blogs. It’s a pretty simple process, you simply put the URL to the Tweet you want to display on a separate line and then POOF! the tweet just magically appears, formatted the same way you see it on the Twitter site. it even grabs the background.
Here is an example
http://twitter.com/#!/wordpressdotcom/status/600049276948480
One tip you WON”T see unless you dig into the comments on that WordPress post: YOu MUST make sure the link is plain text. Wordpress and your Browser may try to “help” you by making the pasted http a link to the page. If that happens, you have to remove the link so WordPress.com sees it as a Twitter link to make into pie…Mmmm…Pie…….
Sorry,I was lost in thought for a second
I wonder what OTHER goodies the “PTB” have for us down the road?
Image via Wikipedia
Let’s say that you are the publisher of a free cooking magazine with recipes and pictures. Let’s also suppose that you’re looking for fresh new talent or articles, for you magazine.
If you are Cooks Source Magazine, (don’t bother with that link, it’s currently toasted, try the Facebook page here until it too is gone.) you obviously choose D, but take care, for in that way direction you only find pain and destruction, as you will see in a moment.
Monica Gaudio published a story last evening that came to me through several news sites today, almost all at once. (A few are linked at the bottom of this post) The story, to quickly summarize, starts with a post Monica did on a web site in 2005 on old English tart recipes. It was written, posted and she moved on from there. Although her post doesn’t state it, I dare say she may even have forgotten the post over time. Imagine her surprise then, when a friend called her to congratulate her being published in Cooks Source Magazine. When Monica researched it, sure enough, it was her article published without her permission. Doing a little “Google-fu”, Monica found the contact information for the magazine, contacted them, and informed them of the obvious mistake. When asked what she “wanted”, Monica states that she requested
I wanted an apology on Facebook, a printed apology in the magazine and $130 donation (which turns out to be about $0.10 per word of the original article) to be given to the Columbia School of Journalism.
To a novice like myself, I would say that was almost like giving them a slap on the wrist, but, I am evidently not as forgiving as Monica. If the publisher, Judith Griggs, had done as requested, I doubt any of us would even be hearing about this whole escapade. However, Ms. Griggs responded in a most peculiar way. Below is a quote from the email.
“Yes Monica, I have been doing this for 3 decades, having been an editor at The Voice, Housitonic Home and Connecticut Woman Magazine. I do know about copyright laws. It was “my bad” indeed, and, as the magazine is put together in long sessions, tired eyes and minds somethings forget to do these things.
But honestly Monica, the web is considered “public domain” and you should be happy we just didn’t “lift” your whole article and put someone else’s name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offence and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me… ALWAYS for free!”
Well…There just aren’t words…
The idea that anything on the internet is “public domain” is silly at best, more likely criminal at worst. While copy-write law is clear that a list of ingredients is not protected, that is not what happened here. This “magazine” lifted the whole article and had the audacity to claim that the editor should have been compensated for her “advice” and providing an article that would look good in a portfolio.
Monica did what anyone engaged in blogging or social media would do – She posted about it Then a few others saw and passed the story on to their friends, who posted links on Twitter to the Facebook page where thousand of people are venting their “dislike” of the magazine. This item has become a trending topic on Twitter. The Facebook page is getting updates so fast you have to go back several pages to find anything older than an hour ago. Authors such as Neil Gaiman
http://twitter.com/#!/neilhimself/status/29694195618
and John Scalzi
http://twitter.com/#!/scalzi/status/29672448399
have tweeted their disgust with the magazine, and of course, someone setup the fake twitter account CooksSource just to keep the meme alive (It has since vanished). This has even made the “main stream” news sites such as the Guardian and the Washington Post (see the block of links below) It seems this has become that proverbial “Tempest in a Teapot” that threatens to spill out even further. According to posts on the Cooks Source Facebook page, people have found that the magazine has even lifted articles and information from Paula Dean and the Food Network, Martha Stewart, and even more are being uncovered as the situation develops. Check out this Twitter Search for more “goodies” as the story continues to develop.
***Update: For an in depth look at this story as well as evidence of other alleged acts of plagiarism, go to Edward Champion’s post here.***
Related articles
Well folks, it’s almost here! BarCamp Memphis is happening this November 13th at Emerge Memphis
If you’ve never attended a BarCamp, let me first tell you that it has nothing to do with going to bars or making drinks, although by its nature it could go there. a “BarCamp” is a gathering of both tech and non-tech people who are interested in gaining and sharing knowledge in a different and exciting way. The focus is on gathering and sharing information with each other. Before you say it, I want to kill another stereotype. While some call these kinds of gatherings conferences (shudder), a BarCamp is nothing of the sort; it is an “Un”conference.
“What in the world is an “un”conference?” you may ask.an unconference is a gathering where the topics of the day are not settled until the day of the conference. This means that anyone, and I mean ANYONE, can show up the day of the conference with an idea, a keynote or Powerpoint presentation, and a killer title, prepared to speak to the masses…but there’s a catch…You KNEW there had to be one. As people arrive, the topics are placed where everyone can see and vote for the presentations they would most like to see. The topics with the most votes fill out the schedule for the day and then you’re off to listen and share. Now before you get cranky and wonder why you should prepare a presentation you may not give, here are some things to consider. In almost every unconference I have attended, few, in any, topics are completely shut out. Usually, there are enough rooms and attendees that most everyone gets a chance to present. HOWEVER, if you don’t actually get to present, you have at least done your homework on a topic to the point you were READY to go. That is a major step for most people and will simply make you more prepared to speak in the future.
You may NOW be wondering if there will be any topics you will be interested in if the topics are set until the morning of BarCamp. Well, you’re in luck. On the BarCamp Memphis site there is a list of possible topics which the organizers already know will be available that day for your vote. That list will be growing by a couple as I will be joining two VERY smart people, Aaron Prather and Rachel Smith for a panel discussion on location based social networks. I am even considering getting a couple of solo presentation ready, one on the iPad -”How do you use a Magical device?” and “The Impact of Online Social Interaction on Business”, but I am still in the air on that.
In case you are still on the fence, thinking that you aren’t “techie” enough to attend, consider this a fun, low impact, low risk way of learning something new about topics that you find interesting and if, by chance, you’re in a session you don’t really like, “rule of two feet”; you have two feet, use them to walk to a different session, or even better, stand in the hall and chat with someone you just met. Now GO, don’t wait, GO NOW! Register now, you know you want too!
See you there!
iAnnotate is an iPad app for the viewing and annotating PDFs. iAnnotate is developed by AJI, who also develop several other applications for the iPad and iPhone, including a free PDF reader named iRead. According to the developer’s website, iAnnotate:
iAnnotate is both an elegant PDF reader and a powerful annotation tool that finally lets you work with your PDFs. You can open documents from email, sign and send out contracts fast, enter notes for edits, sketch diagrams, copy text, and add highlights or underline with the drag of a finger!
While PDF readers are common apps for the iPhone and iPad (even iBooks will allow you to read PDFs), annotating or marking up a PDF is not so easy to do.