Erich Stauffer

Author: Erich Stauffer

  • We Climb to Rest

    Skylines, rooflines, and
    antennas replacing crosses
    Television the new religion,
    Reception the new bosses

    In the morning we rise and fly,
    Leaving our home to give our best
    We tune the dial and tweak our lives
    The sun, it sets. We climb to rest

  • Apocalypse Survival Guide

    Public power and water service may be out of service. Food distribution systems may be down. Communications networks may be out. Your vehicle may not work or you may not be able to get fuel. You may also see a disruption in your source of income or the value of your currency. The following are some tips to help you think through these scenarios in case they ever become a reality.

    No Power, No Water

    You can’t survive more than three days without water so make this a priority. If you don’t or can’t buy a water filtration system now, six t-shirts and a drop of bleach per gallon will filter and disinfect your water. This means you’ll need to keep bleach on hand, though.

    For light at night, candles will only last so long. Know that pencil lead (graphite) and peanuts both burn bright and slow once lit. Be aware not to carbon monoxide poison yourself by burning wood or kerosene. Keep fumes ventilated. If you don’t have a fireplace, use your dryer vent.

    No More Food

    You can stock up on canned goods and ammo, but both will run out. Get a garden’s worth of seeds, a bow, and some arrows that can be reused or made. Also learn what native plants you can safely eat. The white pulp inside cattail stems tastes kind of like a radish and is safe and plentiful along ditches and pond banks. Dandelion leaves and flowers are edible, but the stems are poisonous. White pine needles can also be ate, but taste better boiled, which releases the tanic acid.

    No Phones or Internet

    As you would in a fire escape plan, pick a location to meet and/or exchange messages with loved ones in the event of a disaster. Ideally they would be located at a waypoint between two areas. Depending on the type of disaster, radio equipment may work as long as there is power, but plan ahead on what type of radio you’ll use. To protect equipment from an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), store it and its power source in a metal box.

    No Transportation

    An EMP can disable the electronics in your car, but even if it doesn’t there could be other reasons why fuel may be unavailable. The fastest way to move may be by horse, followed by bicycle. If you can’t afford a horse or aren’t lucky enough to find a public horse, acquire a bike. A wagon (then and now) is a bonus.

    No Income

    If your job has not become useless, defunct, or out of business, you may still find that currency has collapsed. In this case, bartering goods will be in effect. It will be good to have a Depression-era mindset and not throw anything away. Keep in mind that bartering is more than stuff and services you provide (like courier service on your bike) can be used in trade as well.

    How Likely is Any of This to Happen?

    NASA has said that the sun may send an EMP in early 2013. A nuclear blast in the upper atmosphere by a rogue nation would have the same effect. But its not just EMPs. If Yellowstone blows it could disrupt power and transportation in America for months. Be good stewards with the time you have now to prepare for the future.

  • Twitter API Not Available – Twitter Over Capacity

    Twitter is over capacity. Too many tweets! Please wait a moment and try again

    I use both Tweetdeck and Twitter itself to post messages, or tweets, to update both my account, the accounts of my businesses and brands, and the accounts of my customers.  It’s really frustrating when the Twitter API (the connection between third-party programs like Tweetdeck and Twitter) and/or the website is unavailable.  I’ve somewhat learned the times when Twitter is most busy and tried to avoid these times, but this is a trade off.  Because of the way Twitter works, you have to be kind of “in the moment” to matter.  Yes, followers can go back and look at old tweets, but for the most part, they are only looking at their current stream and if you aren’t in it when they are, they don’t see you.

    Why is Twitter so Overloaded All the Time?

    Twitter has become the SMS of the Internet. Because of its restricted 140 characters per post, It has become the hottest thing in social networking. Every one from big companies, to  CEO’s to teens uses Twitter. The more popular the site becomes the more load there is on the servers and the software running on that server.  The original code used to run Twitter, Ruby on Rails, didn’t scale well, but that has been in the process of being fixed for a while now.  The issue now may be the simple lack of available servers.  However, the new Twitter interface seems to be more available than the old one which could indicate that the new profiles are running on both new software and new hardware platforms.

    Graph of Twitter Usage Throughout the Day

  • Erich Stauffer Web Design

    Erich Stauffer WordPress Web Design and Development for Small Businesses in the Greater Indianapolis Area

    When our sales managers started to realize that what customers really cared about was the ability to control their own website, they realized that they were not just selling great looking web design and SEO services, but control and access to their websites, and the ability to change text or add pages as needed. From this point it was decided to be more transparent about the content management system (CMS) they were using to support their clients: WordPress.

    WordPress is an open source CMS, originally used as a blog publishing application powered by PHP and MySQL, but has since been expanded to be able to support almost any web site. It has many features including a plugin architecture and a templating system and is used by over 12% of the top 1 million websites.

    The most popular CMS in use today, WordPress was first released on May 27, 2003 and has since added features like integrated link management, a search engine-friendly permalink structure, the ability to assign nested, multiple categories to posts, and support for tagging. Finally, WordPress has a rich plugin architecture which allows users and developers like us to extend its functionality beyond the features that come as part of the base install.

    By embracing WordPress and having more upfront pricing, we think this greater transparency will lead to a better customer relationship over time. If you are interested in working with friendly, professional, and experienced WordPress developers, contact us today.

  • How France Came to be so French: A Brief History

    “In general, when you value drinking wine and napping over a productive day at work you get farmers who hibernate over the winter and 35 hour work weeks, but specifically, the following explains how France went from leading the crusades in Europe and the Middle East to surrendering to Germany in World War II.

    Around a thousand years ago the Turks view of their Muslim religion changed from one of peace to one more militant and so they decided to take over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which was being shared peacefully between Muslims, Jews, and Christians. French nobles (wealthy members of class, much like the 17 kings of Muncie) wanted to rescue Jerusalem from the Turks so they formed the Templars, rode out, and rooted the Turks (and all the other peaceful Muslims too since they were unable to tell them apart). Afterward, the Templars spent a couple of years digging under the mount (like me, that was their favorite thing to do after writing/routing Turks). Once they found King Solomon’s treasure, they headed back to France and started the banking industry. The King of France made them knights and the Pope recognized them as a state. The Knight Templars began loaning governments money and were considered the most powerful group on the planet. They invented checking accounts and insurance, but when King Phillip of France got behind on his bills, he needed to get rid of the Templars. The only way to do this was for the Pope to disband them. The current Pope wouldn’t do it, so Phillip had that Pope killed and installed his buddy, who did. The Templars were then captured, tortured, and killed, thereby leaving France with the legacy of not having to work to pay for anything, just kill people. That’s what the French Revolution was all about.”

  • Google Set to Launch Chrome App Store

    Google to Launch Chrome App Store in Time for HTC Tablet in November

    Google plans to launch its Chrome App Store in October, Google executives told a German Gamescom audience in Germany this week in August. This store will essentially be Google’s iTunes, supporting devices like the HTC Tablet running Chrome OS, due out in November.

    The HTC device is said to have a relationship with Verizon.  This is critical as most of the ‘big iron’ in the tablet will be in the cloud and apps may not be able to run without being connected to the Internet.  Questions remain on whether or not there will be caps on the data plans like AT&T did to iPhone users, but this may be the new normal.

    Again, like Apple, Google will be opening up the opportunity for developers to write programs and apps for Chrome and Chrome OS in exchange for a cut of each sale, rumored to be at 5%. The app store would be available to users of its Chrome browser and the Chrome OS, which means the potential market is much bigger than just tablet PC users running the Chrome OS as Chrome can be ran on any computer.  It will be interesting to see both how the store performs and how people like using mobile devices that only work when connected to the Internet, ala cloud computing-style.  I personally use a HTC Droid, which mostly only works when connected, so maybe it will be okay.

  • Facebook Buys Chai Labs’ for Semantic Search Technology

    Facebook has acquired online search company Chai Labs for $10 million

    As Facebook vies to compete with Google and expand it’s search functionality from searching Facebook.com to searching the world wide web, it has looked to a vertically focused company steeped in Internet glory including Netscape and Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen, LinkedIn chairman Reid Hoffman, and Google Ventures general partner Joe Kraus who are all investors and/or advisors at Chai Labs.

    Chai Labs specializes in a technology it calls “Semantic Search,” which “uses proprietary crawling, artificial intelligence and data mining technologies to analyze and extract insights from millions of real-time data points across the web,” according to the company’s website. The “Semantic Web” is a term coined by World Wide Web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee, which is a, “New form of Web content that is meaningful to computers.” The semantic web is gaining momentum as HTML5 includes more support for it.

    So what does Facebook want with the semantic web?

    Unlike when it has aquired online sharing sites like Friendfeed* and ShareGrove or purchased Web-based image-hosting companies like Divvyshot, Facebook’s purchase of Chai Labs does not have an immediately apparent value to users-the value it seems, is to Facebook who may be able to use the semantic functionality to hone search results based on a person’s profile, making results theoretically more accurate. While Facebook does have a built-in search engine that lets users search the entire Internet (which is basically just an embedded Bing engine), many users still use Google or Yahoo for search, but Facebook is trying to change that. While Google is trying to become more like Facebook by creating Orkut, purchasing Jaikut (and then abandoning it), rolling out Wave (and then pulling it back), and now Buzz (and possibly a Buzz/Wave combo called Google Me), Facebook is trying to become more like Google.  Why?

    Follow the Money

    Search engines and social networks both make money by selling ads and they are successful at doing so because ads are displayed to the users most likely to click on them (and purchase the product or service).  How they are able to do this has everything to do with the purchase of Chai Labs.  The more targeted search results are, the more likely users will find ads relevant, and the more likely users are to click, which makes Google and Facebook gobs of cash.  While Google makes some money from Google Apps customers, the majority of their revenue is from ad sales and Facebook wants a piece of that pie.  This is all part of the recipe.

    *FriendFeed’s executive team included Paul Buchheit, creator and lead developer of Google Gmail, and Bret Taylor, who was responsible for the launch of Google Maps. Taylor is now chief technology officer of Facebook.

  • What if Microsoft Bob Was Released Today as Microsoft’s Social Network

    I am one of the 58,000 Microsoft Bob users from 1995 and to celebrate 15 years I thought I’d write a fake news article imagining what Bob would be like today if released as a social network.

    Microsoft Announces ‘Bob’ Social Network Based on Microsoft Bob
    Could this be a Facebook killer?

    Microsoft Bob, the toy operating system within an operating system, which debuted in 1995, is now back in a big way as a new social network. Although revolutionary at the time, the three dimensional software that let you store and retrieve files from an actual file cabinet in a virtual office room is regarded as one of the worst applications ever made after Windows ME. But this version of Bob hopes to change that perception and get back to Microsoft’s original interpretation of Neil Stephenson’s Metaverse by taking the house, rooms, and avatar to a new level. In the same way that you got to your PC’s desktop in Bob .’95, at Bob.com PCs are used like widgets to display RSS feeds or Facebook. In Facebook terms, your profile is your house in Bob. When someone is “viewing your profile” on Bob you will see their avatar in your house if you are logged in and there too.

    How is this different than Second Life?

    In Second Life there is a virtual world that you explore and create things like houses in. In Bob, the world is created by you building a house, liking a band, or following a friend. Each time you add something to Bob it gets a physical place in your virtual Bob world. Each user’s world will look different un layout, but the content of each unit will be the same to all users. For example, if you want to live next door to Ace Freely and he agrees to be your friend, his house would be next to yours, but from his perspective, your house may be blocks from his in his Bob world.

    Integration

    Because Microsoft is involved expect to be able to integrate pictures and files from your PC in Bob, which will use Azure and will enable sharing and collaborations much like the Microsoft / Facebook project, Docs.com. Also Bing search and maps will be used. Expect Bing local search to be heavily promoted as businesses get on board and begin joining. Unlike Facebook, expect to be able to buy things from shops you have added to your network.

    Summary and Analysis

    In the same way we didn’t need a layer on top of Windows 95 to use Windows 95 I’m not sure we need an Internet world layered on top of our existing Internet, but it would be nice to hang out with other friends in their avatar forms in some sweet man cave I built in my FRIGGIN mansion on Bob.

  • Introducing My Latest Endeavor: Cost Publishing

    Cost Publishing Media Group, or Cost Pub for short, is a collection of personal blogs, informative web sites, and web directories. This extensive content network’s mission is to filter and codify information relative to each web site’s respective topic. All blogs, web sites, and directories are free to read and use and readers are encouraged to subscribe to RSS feeds and follow them on Twitter and Facebook. Each site will eventually have its own Tumblr site, which is an up-and-coming social network you’ll be hearing about more in the future and ebooks, or digitions, are a natural next step for this market.

    Cost Pub is dedicated to relevant, insightful writing that is kept fresh and up to date on a regular basis. We are proud of what Cost Pub has accomplished and where it is going as a platform and network. They only work with the most talented writers so if you know of anyone who may be interested in joining their team, let the editor at Cost Publishing Media Group know by sending in a note at their contact page on their web site. Guest blogging opportunities are also available both at one of Cost Pub’s web sites or blogs and by our writers on your web site or blog. We look forward to seeing what Cost Pub can do and enjoy reading daily.