Yes, today is 08 08 08. The most significant thing happening today is the 2008 Summer Olympic Games (link is to English version), being held in Beijing, China. Without trying to make some political statement, I’m pretty surprised more athletes or countries didn’t refuse to participate. Does that mean something?

A neighbor is getting married today. That will be kinda cool for them, having 080808 as their wedding date. It will definitely be the subject of discussion for years to come.

Today is a Friday, and yeah, I’m working. the weather in Salt Lake City, UT is very cloudy, and in places it’s raining.

I purchased a single MP3 from Amazon this morning. It’s Tracy Lawrence, Find Out Who Your Friends Are. The cost was $0.99. I heard the song on Pandora.com, and they make it easy to buy songs directly from iTunes or Amazon. I buy a lot of songs this way.

What are you doing on 080808?

If you’re a Flickr user, and want to post photos to your blog, you know there is no way to add categories or tags to the post. There could be a plug-in solution, but I couldn’t find it. Seriously, I looked for a long time. If there is one that does what I’m proposing, please let me know and I will update this post and back out what I’ve done.

This solution isn’t for the faint of heart. And I’m not 100% sure how secure it is. But I know for a fact it works just like I want. Here is the scenario and my hack:

1. Create a new WordPress user for Flickr posts. Doesn’t matter what you call it. Just make sure it has posting rights.
2. Add you blog, or modify and existing entry, in your Flickr account. How to do this is beyond the scope of my explanation.
3. Use the new WordPress user you created in step one in your Flickr blog settings.
4. Modify you xmlrpc.php file that sits in your WordPress root folder, with the below code. It would be in the same place as wp-config.php.

Here is where it gets a little hairy. Find the line which has this code snippet. Mine starts on line 1578, but yours may differ. It’s in the function mw_newPost($args):

if (is_array($catnames)) {

foreach ($catnames as $cat) {

$post_category[] = get_cat_ID($cat);

}

}

Just above the code on line 1578, add this code snippet:

if ( $user_login == '*NEW_USER_NAME*' ) {

$catnames[] = '*CATEGORY*';

$tags_input[] = '*TAG1*';

$tags_input[] = '*TAG2*';

}

Save the file. Flickr gives you the ability to create a test post. I would recommend you do that before calling it good. Make SURE to remove any entries in the Settings/Writing/Update Services box before testing or your test post will show up in your RSS feed and anywhere else that you ping a new post.

Now, when you post from Flickr, using the correct WordPress user, you should have an entry in the category you choose, with the tags you want. You can add as many tags, or even categories as you like.

Again, there may be a more elegant solution that I haven’t found, but for now this solves my problem. I suppose you could use this for any outside service that uses XMLRPC to post to your blog.

I’m also interested in hearing about potential security issues with this solution.

Photo courtesy of poolie.

It’s August 1st. We are in the dog days of summer. The time where you’re just about fed up with hot weather, and ready for the fall cool down to happen. Not to mention you’re ready for the kids to go back to school. Pools are your best friend, and you get up early just to go for a run

NaBloPoMo theme for August is HOT. So, I’ll be writing post about things that are hot. And they won’t necessarily be about the weather.

Play along if you would like, visit the web site here.

Photo by PieterMusterd

Joseph Scott mentioned to me at PodCampSLC that he was interested in having a WordCamp here in Utah. I thought it was a fantastic idea. So over the past few weeks we’ve talked about it and it looks like the event is going forward.

Because this is a community event, it’s important that everyone get involved early. We only have a few months to put a great camp together. Please join us on April 10th at 6:30, Applebees in Draper, for a first draft WordCamp Utah meet-up. There’s a lot to cover and we need as many people as possible to help out. Let us know you’re coming on upcoming.org.

Another thing we want is bloggers to present topics at WordCamp. There will be a spot on the WordCamp Utah site to register and sign up to present.

This is a great opportunity to meet other WordPress bloggers, learn more about the platform, network, and get some great ideas to succeed.

We only have five days before PodCampSLC kicks off. The current schedule we have at the moment:

9-10 Come by and get your name tag, get a seat, and schedule your discussions
10-11 Kick off and Keynote by Michael Harper, Professor, Utah Valley University
11:15-12:15 Attend Session 1, join another discussion, or start your own
12:15-1:15 Lunch
1:30-2:30 Attend Session 2, join another discussion, or start your own
2:45-3:45 Attend Session 3, join another discussion, or start your own
4 Wrap up, comments and final thoughts

There will be a Podcasting Genius Bar — Completely open access to recorders, cameras, software, and experts. Michael Harper, from UVSC/UVU, is driving this offering. Please contact Michael with suggestions or to volunteer — harpermi AT uvsc DOT edu.

We need to be out of the building as soon as we can after the wrap up.

Bring your friends, business associates, anyone who is interested in sharing ideas or learning more about new media. Thanks, and we’ll see you there.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted anything and it feels really weird because I had been on a roll publishing something everyday. But alas years of neglecting my body has caught up with me. No one can sustain themselves on all night binges and running non-stop for the twenty years. So I must slow down and smell the roses as it were.

Ironically my problems began about the same time Marc Orchant passed away (please visit the site for a donation link). I didn’t know Marc personally but knew him him online. It was very sobering to know he wasn’t much older than myself. This has been a personal wake up call. The past week or so I’ve tried to remove myself from stressful situations, reduce my work load and move a little slower. My doctor has put me on a good healthy routine and says my future is up to me.

I appreciate all the well wishes I’ve received, but I am doing fine. I may not be as vocal as I’ve been in the past but I’m still here.

I also wanted to apologize to those who have not been able to get to my site over the past week. Not sure what happened but I think I finally got it all ironed out yesterday. Feedburner also removed all of my RSS subscribers, just when I was trying to increase them. Anyway, if you can, please reconnect to my RSS feed, it should be working now.

Salt Lake City and they surrounding areas received a welcome guest yesterday, snow. The first storm dropped some white stuff a few days earlier but it melted just as fast. But not this time. It snowed for at least 24 hours.

This is the good stuff. The stuff Utah is famous for; powder. I took a few more photos around the outside of my house. Take a look.

During the month of November I tried to tackle two writing projects at the same time. I knew I would be blogging so joining the National Blog Posting Month group would be pretty easy. The other project I was attempting was National Novel Writing Month. Arguably the most difficult task to complete in 30 days. So here’s how I did:

I managed to write 40 blog posts in the month of November. Those 40 posts garnered 38 comments. Not quiet 1 per post but hey at least someone is reading what I write.

I managed to write 2893 words of my 50,000 word novel. I had reached about 9000 words when I realized the story was going no where and I needed to start over. I know, that was a stupid idea but the story was making no sense and it wouldn’t have made a difference. I wanted something that you could read rather than just a bunch of words on paper. So while I didn’t write a complete Novel I started one that I hope will end up in as a book one day.

I wrote a flash fiction story for a fellow writer to review. It needs a lot of work, in fact I will re-write the whole thing. Flash fiction is difficult to write. A complete story in under 1000 words. That doesn’t give you much room for fluff. But I like what flash fiction teaches; to be concise and to the point. I did learned you can write very creative fiction in a small amount of words.

So in summary I had a pretty good writing month. My goal has been to increase the number of words I write both in blog posts and stories. I haven’t even counted the number of words all of my blog posts have captured, but it’s over 80,000, close enough for a Novel all by itself.

This month I’m focusing on these areas:

• A few series I want to write on digital photography and Lifestreaming.
• Social Media sites like Facebook and Ning. If you’ve never checked out Ning you need too. It’s incredible. I love the layout and the community building. Ning has a strong platform and is pushing the new OpenSocial platform.
• OpenSocial and Android (mobile API)
• New Media posts that coincide with PodCampSLC.

So December ought to be fun. What are you doing this month?

Here are some great links I came across from the previous week:

• Russell Beattie writes eBooks need more contrast to take off
• Chris Brogan says Passion Drives Personal Brand
• Pam at Escape from Cubical Nation asks Do you have to have an interesting life to use Twitter?
• 52 Novels asks Could something like TechStars work for novelists? (I am so on board with this idea)
• Mark Cuban writes Do Blog Comments Have Value?
• Zen Habits writes Obsessive- Compulsive’s Guide: Top 12 Organizing Tips, Plus Resources

A good friend sends out a weekly email about improving sales skills. One of the reasons I like reading his advise are the questions he asks at the end. Most of the time they are interpersonal questions. But today, her wrote this:

Educating the world is not your job. Go find some smart people and do some business with them.

Several years ago a mentor told me this “If you want to be making a million dollars a year, why aren’t you surrounding yourself with people who are?” The point I think he was trying to make, and the one my friend is trying to make, is surround yourself with smart people who are winners. We learn from example. That is how we learned to talk, to walk, eat, pretty much everything we do we learned from watching someone first.

Take inventory of where you are. Who you are associating with. Are these people helping you reach your goals? Can they? Are you helping those around you reach their goals? Can you?

My suggestion is to have a well rounded set of friends and associates. Make sure everyone is positive and supportive. Those who aren’t need to be removed from your life. If you aren’t positive or supportive, change your attitude, change your friends, change your path.
Describe the kind of person who makes your life better.