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?

Today’s note will be fairly short. I just wanted to give a shout out to those in the medical profession. Tonight I watched an episode of Hopkins, a semi reality show about Doctors at John Hopkins Hospital. It’s mind boggling what these Doctors are able to do. I have a Daughter who has been on the receiving end of their medical marvels.

No matter how much I bitch and moan about about the cost of medical care, I am glad that people are willing to get their hands dirty to save lives.

Picture courtesy of Gustty

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.

My personal trainer recommended a book the other day called It’s Your Ship, by Captain D. Michael Abrashoff. As a former United States Marine, I try and read leadership books written by those who served in the military. I connect with them. I understand their leadership styles and I always learn something.

Leadership comes in many forms. Good leaders make adjustment to their surroundings and the people they are working with. But the principles remain the same. Captain Abrashoff is the kind of leader hard to find in the corporate world.

The style most identifiable, and the one he uses as an example over and over, is giving those that work for him the responsibility, authority and resources to make things happen. He knows you build people up and give them what they need to succeed, and your own success will follow.

There’s plenty of example situations, and he does a good job of dissecting both wins and losses. I happen to consume this book by audio CD, and I must admit by the 5th CD I was a little bored. The references to Navy process and protocol was a little much, and it felt like he was losing focus on leadership, and instead droned on about the Navy and his crew.

I whole heartedly recommend this book. Aside from the military flavor, he does play both sides of the isle, indicating how a business can use the same leadership principle he did in the Navy.

Join us as we interview Frank Eliason, Digital Care Manager at Comcast on how he started something of a phenomenon using Twitter to help people with their Comcast challenges, under the name @comcastcares.

When discussing his experience with social networks, Frank notes that Twittering about people’s fragged modems at work wasn’t the first exposure he’d had with Internet community-building:

My first experience in social media was not listening to Customers, but rather communicating about the health of our daughter Gianna, who was born premature. Years later when she was diagnosed with cancer, we again communicated through our website.

She passed away in 2004, shortly before her 4th birthday. What is interesting is how her website put us in touch with so many great people from around the world. Some of the closest friends I will ever have. In Gia’s memory when possible we work to support many of the charitable organizations that were there for us.

Visit CouchCast.org for all of our shows. Come and be part of this sometimes wacky, sometimes funny, and sometimes techie podcast. Hosted by Robert Merrill, Matthew Reinbold and Thom Allen.

Utah author Paul Genesse and friends, put out a great ezine, about once a quarter. This is for writers, by writers. Why is it hot? Let me tell you.

Paul rocks at providing assistance to other writers. He has a good mix of contributors, and the content is always refreshing. In the latest edition he covers GenCon, pegged as “The Best Four Days In Gaming”. But Paul contests it should also be called “The Best Four Days In Writing”. Some 70 writing seminars, panels and workshops will be given at GenCon. There are two tracks, game writing and fiction writing.

If you’re a writer, you need to check out the ezine. It can easily be found at Paul’s website, http://paulgenesse.blogspot.com, or the Writers Sumposium website, http://writerssymposium.blogspot.com.

Photos by Ant Smith

Today was Breaking Dawn day. One of the hottest days in the book business. A day that compares to a Harry Potter day. Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight series, released book four today. Just to give you an idea the number of people who wanted to stand in line to get a copy, my wrist band said number 800, and that was just at one book store.

Needless to say, I was not going to stand in line while I watched 799 other people complete their purchase. So I did some reconnaissance. I found that several smaller stores were carrying the book, and so early this morning I trekked to a Wal-Mart and purchased 4 copies, and there was no line, and no one to fight.

The reason it was so important for me to get this book, was a daughters insane attachment to the story characters. The male character, Edward, is apparently hot. Every woman whose read the book wants their man to be Edward. It’s hard to live up to.

The reason I’m telling you this story, is that word of mouth has basically driven the success of this book series. In the tween age group its a hot story. Vampire love stories are all the rage. Every author should be so lucky as Stephenie Meyer. Don’t get me wrong, she is a very good writer, and tells great stories. But the readers have created the frenzy. Its been truly amazing to see it happen.

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