(jeff)isageek.net

Over the last few weeks I have been playing around with 12seconds.tv a lot and have to say its a fun little service.  Not gonna change the world or find a cure for cancer but a kool little service.

Once thing I didnt like was not having an rss feed to throw into google reader or on my friendfeed to know when a contact had updated.

So for that I went to Yahoo Pipes and the 12seconds API.  Armed with that and help from my buddy Olivier you now can get that information.  Its a simple feed with not a lot of information but it does what I need and that is updating me via rss.

note : all you need to do is go into the source code and take my username out unless you want my friends updates hehe.

enjoy and if you come up with or find something better please do let me know!

[get the pipe here]

I recently discovered kohina which streams 8/16 bit music straight from consoles like the commodore 64 and atari 2600.  Now if you are a geek like me this is some awesome news as this has become my background music when I am at work and I am gonna get my fm transmitter out and see if I can stream from my phone to my car stereo which would be hellakool!

Kohina is a free “just for fun” web stream, streaming the classic 8/16 bit computer, arcade, and console music of our misspent youth, as well as the latest scene music from the platforms that remain active.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Recently I have been working with others locally here in Kansas City who are in the Social Media Scene to work on getting a Social Media Club setup here in the area. Basically the idea behind the club is just bringing different people togather to share and socialize together.

This past Wed night we had our first meetup and it was awesome…if you are interested in the social media scene this is the group for you but that is not what I am writing this about.

This morning we had our meetup where we discuss future events and ideas we have for the group and I brought up the idea of putting togather either a blog or a social network together using a service like ning or something…..well to make a long story short we decided to go with ning and when I got home I started hacking away at it.

I am proud to announce the site is live and if you want to join up you are more then welcome to jump over to http://socialmediaclubkc.ning.com/ sign up and start meeting new people out here in the KC and surrounding areas.

With the site you have the ability to find others with common interests, find out about future events coming up in the area, as well as join in the forum discussions and let you voice be heard.

Just found out about this sweet project over at mozilla labs called Ubiquity.  What is Ubiquity you ask?

An experiment into connecting the Web with language.

Ubiquity’s goals are to:

Empower users to control the web browser with language-based instructions. (With search, users type what they want to find. With Ubiquity, they type what they want to do.)

Enable on-demand, user-generated mashups with existing open Web APIs. (In other words, allowing everyone (not just Web developers) to remix the Web so it fits their needs, no matter what page they are on, or what they are doing.)

Use Trust networks and social constructs to balance security with ease of extensibility.

Extend the browser functionality easily.

I dont know about you but this seems like a pretty kool app that takes firefox functionality to the next level. Check out this video demonstrating Ubiquity

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

So FriendFeed has the new look over at beta.friendfeed.com and one of the kool new features is the ability to put your friends or people you subscribe to in groups to lower the noise or just allow you to get what noise you want based on what you are looking for in that group.  So how do you have your groups so far?  I would love to know as I am working on getting that all ironed out for myself

Right now I have 2 groups I have created in offline friends which would be coworkers, family, misc friends i know personally who might just have a flickr feed, maybe a blog, ect - I like to call these my none geek friends.  Then for my second so far is kc friends where I have local podcasters, social media geeks, and bloggers.

For now that is it….now I have to decide how am i gonna group others like Corvida, idonotes, wayne sutton, j.phil, ect.

So how are you using the new FriendFeed Filter?  Would love to hear any thoughts on the matter.  Basically I am just looking for ideas….hehe

Testing out the new reblogging feature in Disqus. thats right now you can take any comment that is using disqus and turn it into your very own blog post or part of a blog post. Will be interesting to play around with this feature. What do you think?

Comments Can Be Blog Posts

We think so too.

A lot of great conversation goes on in comments that shouldn’t be stuck behind the fold. Publishing these back to traditional blogs is a great way to bring attention to great content. It needs to happen more often.

That’s why we’ve been trying to make it even easier.

Announcing Reblogging on DISQUS

Now on comments throughout DISQUS, you can find a reblog link where you can publish a quotation of the comment to your blog. This quote is cited with the original author, the blog where it originally appeared, and a link back to the original comment to give the discussion full context.

At the moment, we’re supporting publishing to Wordpress, Movable Type, TypePad, and Tumblr with more platforms to come.

So next time you see a comment that everyone really needs to read, give it a whirl. We’re excited to see more good content bubble to the surface.

Originally posted as a comment by Devin on A VC using Disqus.

Adam Ostrow of Mashable and Readburner recently put the call out on his blog for bloggers and social media types to join in a fantasy football league with the winner of the league getting to donate their winnings in their name to the charity of their choice.

I thought this was an awesome idea to take something I always enjoy doing each year which is fantasy football and give back to a an organization that gave so much to me growing up - The Boy Scouts of America (of which I am an Eagle Scout).

So with that said here is the team i drafted:

Charities represented:

• Mallory Dash - National Partnership for Women and Families
• Chris Lucas - Nothing but Nets
• Meg Fowler - Jane Doe, Inc.
• Micah Baldwin - Donors Choose
• Adam Ostrow - The National Alliance for Autism Research
• Leslie Poston - Jane Doe, Inc.
• Michael Davis - Cancer for College
• Jonathan Joseph - American Cancer Society
• Aaron Brazell - Chesapeake Bay Foundation
  
• me - Boy Scouts of America

I will keep you updated with how I am doing throughout the season and wish the best of luck to everyone in the league fighting for 2nd place haha…seriously though best of luck and very kool we are all playing for worthwhile charities.

First I wanted to thank Mona for putting my tweet that of course was cross posted to FriendFeed in the FriendFeed Hall Of Fame (lol) and second I thought I would share it with those maybe who follow the blog but not my other stuff like FriendFeed or Twitter.

Basically the story behind this was I use BrightKite to check in places I go and sometimes you have to do a search to find the location you are looking for.  So I put in the Restaurant’s name hit search and wouldnt you know as one of the options to choose from the search was the Grandview Animal Hospital!!!!!  Allison and I got a huge laugh out of that and from the responses I got so did everyone else.

good stuff and another example of technology adding a little humor to our lives.

So every once in awhile I will check out my FriendFeed stats to see who am I really finding interesting, who I have liked or commented the most, who I am really digging.

So I thought hey what a good idea for a blog post….so with that here are the top 10 that I find interesting at this time.  I thought It would be a good way to share with my readers who might be new to FriendFeed or even my long time followers to find someone new to follow….if I find them interesting then you know they gotta be.  hehe

Corvia
J. Phil
Louis Gray
Mona N.
Mike Fruchter
Benjamin Golub
“Czar” DJ Peterman
Hao Chen
l0ckergn0me
Mark Wilson

who is on your list?  throw some up on the comments and maybe myself or someone else can find some new “interesting” people on FF.

With a new week comes a week full of meetups which I must say is pretty exciting.  If you are in the Kansas City area and have a chance make sure to come visit with fellow bloggers, social media types, and geeks in general.  Here is a rundown of the meetups I plan to attend this week.

Tuesday (August 26th, 2008) - KC Bloggers Meetup [link]
75th Street Brewery - 5pm

This will be my first time at the bloggers gathering…look forward to meeting some local bloggers.

Wednesday (August 27th, 2008) - Social Media Meetup [link]
Perceptive Sofware - 5:30pm

There should be all types at this event….bloggers/podcasters/social media types/everyone else.  If you are into any of the aspects of social media or the social web try to come to this event.  hearing about all the planning for this event…this one should be a good one.  hope to see you there.

Friday (August 29th, 2008 - Social Media Breakfast [link]
Broadway Cafe in Westport - 7:30am

This is an event were we usually get together…discuss future events and ideas for meetups and such.  Come have some coffee, chat, and help come up with ideas for future events.

Friday (August 29th, 2008 - Kansas City Geek Out
Daily Dose in Olathe - 11:00pm

If you are a geek then this is the place to come hang out on Friday nights.  All geeks welcome….computer, security, comic book, gaming, whatever you geek out too come and share.  Always a good time.

So there you have it…a busy week of meetups here in the Kansas City area.  I am looking forward to them all as it is always great just hanging with others and meeting new people with different thoughts and ideas.

Hope to see you there.