(Anti) Social Development » Green

(Anti) Social-Lists 5/10/09

Kim Woodbridge — Sun, 10 May 2009 04:01:12 +0000

Happy Mother’s Day to the planet, to Mothers and to your Mothers. I didn’t really find links about mothers but I bet I will after today. ;-) I hope you have a wonderful day.

Olan Mills Photos – Not so flattering portrait photos from the Olan Mills archives.
Cute Critters Free Icons A collection of adorable animal icons.
Important Security Fix for WordPress – A sequence of events led Jeff Starr to realize the vulnerability of the install.php file for WordPress. Basically, after you install WordPress, delete the file.
Green Tech Guides Making Greener Gadget Shopping Easier – Resources to help you make your gadget purchases less detrimental to the environment. I have to admit that for me the biggest factor is price so I need to be more aware of this. My troublemaker computer, however, does have a greener motherboard.
Why You Should Want to Win a Green Life – David at The Good Human lists logical reasons we would want to live greener. You know things like clean air and clean water.
Ants – I’ve had a problem with ants recently. I scrubbed the kitchen from top to bottom but they are very attracted to the cat food (yum!). I was told that ants won’t cross chalk so I’ve let the kid use sidewalk chalk in the kitchen and have ringed the cat food bowl in chalk. And it works! The ants won’t cross it. Of course, I still need to find out where the ants are coming from but still success for the cats.
Stars Wars Meets Meets Michael Jackson
I went to a Mother’s Day tea at my daughter’s school this week. She was SO excited that I was coming. Before this week it would have been difficult for me to attend but now that I’m freelancing I have more freedom with my schedule. The following photos are the items that she made for me; a poem and a placemat. I’m not sure what she means about making good Mac & Cheese unless she likes the way I warm up Stouffers. I hope everyone has a great Mother’s Day.

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(Anti) Social-Lists 5/10/09

(Anti) Social-Lists 2/22/09

Kim Woodbridge — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 11:12:58 +0000

This week I’ve got Twitter, Green Housing, Obama’s Blackberry, Productivity, Manuals, Gimp and Geeks.

Twitter: Can Chaos Be a Biz Model – People argue that Twitter can be hard to understand because it is so chaotic and this article discusses how the chaos of twitter can be a business model.
Low Income Housing Eco Style – This article shows that low income housing can be environmentally sound and affordable.
Obama’s BlackBerry brings personal safety risks – Do you think President Obama’s Blackberry poses a security risk or that the administration has taken these issues into consideration?
Why Trying to be Productive is a Huge Waste of Time – While I don’t agree with every point made in the article, I do think that too much emphasis can be placed on productivity for the sake of productivity. A lot can be said for doing nothing.
OwnerIQ – Database of online manuals for a variety of electronic products. Very useful when you can’t remember how to use the self-clean feature on your fancy coffeemaker.
10 Websites to Help You Master Gimp Gimp is the open-source alternative to Photoshop. It’s very powerful but can be difficult to master. This list of websites should help.
50 Skills Every Real Geek Should Have – I guess I’m not a real geek because I don’t have all of these skills but I was surprised at how many I did have. Of course, the list assumes that a geek is male because it included how to hide your porn. And I don’t know any females that need this skill.
Playpump – Water Pumps Powered by Children Playing

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(Anti) Social-Lists 2/22/09

5 WordPress Citrus Themes

Kim Woodbridge — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 11:13:09 +0000

I’m not sure why this is but there are an unusually high number of WordPress themes with Citrus in their name. It seems that whenever green, yellow or orange are used that oranges, grapefruit and limes pop into the theme creator’s mind.

So, as I started noticing this assortment if fruity themes, I decided to collect them and highlight this naming oddity.

This is NOT a personal recommendation of these themes. At least one of them could easily be added to my article about ugly WordPress themes.

Anyway, maybe some extra citrus is needed during this dark time of year, especially for those of us who live in cold climates. And now I’m thinking about how grandparents would tell me that they would only get an orange for Christmas. That seems so sad until you think about globalization and buying locally. If you lived in say Canada, you certainly wouldn’t have had access to citrus in December, if ever.

First up is Fresh Citrus. This one seems a bit too blue to me to really be a full fledged Citrus theme. Well, it does have little green I didn’t make this one first on purpose but I think it is the best of the lot. And look! The Web 2.0 seal of approval. If it says Web 2.0, it’s gotta be good.

Citrus Mix definitely has more of a citrus feel. It’s green and yellow. I like the use of white space. It might make a good theme for a food or recipe blog. Hmm … maybe with the word mix in the title it could be a site for mixed drinks.

Bright orange! Bright yellow! Citrus! This theme is called, wait for it …. Citrus. It’s very bright.

We had Fresh Citrus and now Citrus Fresh. This is a go with the green lime kind of theme. And gray … gray is very citrusy.

And finally, Citrus Net. It has some green and it’s on the Internet … I guess. I’m not a fan of this one at all. It’s a contender for my list of ugly WordPress themes.

So, there you have it. 5 shots of Vitamin C to keep you healthy over the holidays.

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5 WordPress Citrus Themes

5 Articles about Twitter: My Greatest Hits

Kim Woodbridge — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 11:12:04 +0000

It seems that people are interested in freelancing or earning extra money and in twitter. Since I wrote a number of articles about twitter before anyone was visiting this site (and because I’m lazy), I’m re-posting what I consider to be my 5 best articles about Twitter.

They are on a variety of topics and aren’t exactly the how to get started with twitter types of articles but I think you will still find them useful.

Green Twitter: Environmental Resources – Last May, Twitter was going through a lot of growing pains, service was unstable and the users were constantly complaining about it. In response, I wrote my first article about Twitter and created my Green Twitter list, which is a list of users working on environmental and green issues. I also created an opml file of the users web sites to import into feed readers. The list, however, has not been updated in quite some time and is on my to-do list – it just keeps getting pushed to the bottom.
Monitter – Embed Live Bigfoot Search Stream Results – This article was obviously written when I was being more creative with titles and less concerned with keywords. It is a mini review of Monitter, which is an online keyword tracking tool for twitter. It runs in a web page and you can follow three keywords simultaneously. This could be very useful when searching twitter for freelancing work.
Twellow: Categorize Your Twellow Self – Twellow is a directory of Twitter users that cateogorizes them based on interests or field. The problem is that Twellow categorizes based on what is written in the twitter bio. As I mention in the article, I used to have Doctor Who written in my bio because I was a fan of the show and Twellow had me in the health and medicine category. You can, however, claim your profile by logging in and than add and remove yourself from categories. Twellow is also one of the best ways to find other users with similar interests.
Qwitter – Find Out Who Has Stopped Following You on Twitter – A humorous look at Qwitter, a tool that emails you when someone has stopped following you and what your last tweet was before that happened.
Ranking Yourself on Twitter: Does it Even Matter – An examination of our obsession with ranking and grading ourselves in all aspects of our lives. Do you care about your twitter grade or influence? I might check it out but I’m not going to broadcast broadcast my scores.

photo credit: brothergrimm

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5 Articles about Twitter: My Greatest Hits

(Anti) Social-Lists 10/19/08

Kim Woodbridge — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 17:57:36 +0000

Wow, another week already. This week’s list has a number of articles written for Blog Action Day 08, Ari Herzog’s steps in moving from Blogger to WordPress, and Mark Hayward’s list of people to follow on Twitter (ok, ok I’m on his list).

How I Moved From Blogger to WordPress – Ari Herzog describes the process he took when moving from Blogger to a self-hosted WordPress. This is usually useful for others thinking of making the switch.
Eco Savvy Blogging Tips I wrote a guest post for Green & Clean Mom while she was at BlogHer. The article lists four ways you can blog a little greener. Check out other green articles while you are over there because it’s a great site.
A National Shame: The Mentally Ill Homeless – Mike Nichols wrote an article about the mentally ill homeless as his contribution to Blog Action Day 08. The article is informative and disturbing. How can such a wealthy nation allow so many sick people to live in the street?
Poverty in Pictures – Pro Blog Design shows us the impact of poverty on children though photographs.
97 Remarkable Ways to Diversify Your Network in a Down Economy – Over at My Tropical Escape, Mark Hayward lists 97 people to follow on Twitter. Mark is super nice and is one of the people responsible for the launch of Train for Humanity so you bet that that the people on this list are worth following.
The African Dichotomy of Hope and Despair Chris Guillebeau writes about poverty in Africa and discusses how things we can do to help give the people hope.

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(Anti) Social-Lists 10/19/08

Writing: First Article at Environmental Graffiti

Kim Woodbridge — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:34:37 +0000

I’ve been so busy this week that I really don’t have a proper post planned. I suppose I could just not post but I’ve developed a posting schedule and I really don’t want to deviate from it. Of course, it would help if I wrote posts up in advance for times like this but I’ve never managed to get more than three posts ahead

Being busy is good. I’ve started getting some freelancing work. Not enough to leave my job yet but it’s a start. What I’ve lost is time. I’m a little overwhelmed. What do you do when you feel this way? What do you write about when you don’t have a post prepared?

So, I thought I would let you know about one of my smaller projects. I’ve started contributing articles to Environmental Graffiti and my first article, Welcome to the Village Underground, was posted this week. I’m hoping to write one or two articles there per week. We’ll see. It gives me the opportunity to write about the environment, which is one of my interests. Articles about the environment, however, don’t fit with the rest of the postings on this site.

So, check out the article – it’s short. Leave a comment here or there, if you like it (or even if you don’t).

I know most of my regular readers through their blogs but don’t know too much else about them. So, I thought I’d ask a question. What else do you do? I know you write awesome blogs on a wide variety of topics but tell me something else about you. Do you have a full time job? What do you do? Do you have side endeavors like my article at Environmental Graffiti? Please, let me know – I’m very interested.

Thanks!

photo credit: baldiri

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Writing: First Article at Environmental Graffiti

Stuff This in Your RSS – 10/7/08 – The Good Human

Kim Woodbridge — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:03:39 +0000

This week I thought we would go a little green and add The Good Human as our RSS feed of the week.

The Good Human, run by Dave who is an awesome guy, encourages us to be better at being human whether it’s through caring for the environment or just being better people. Plus Dave grew up near my cousins (though he didn’t know them) so I’ve got to highlight him here.

This morning I didn’t know what the RSS feed of the week was going to be. This is a little odd because I usually decide over the weekend. I was scanning through by poor overstuffed feedreader and my eyes landed on The Good Human. I then started to read “I Am Perfect, You Are Not – A Failure Of The Green Movement” and immediately knew I’d settled on my choice.

If you want to be greener, live more environmentally sound or just be a better person, I highly recommend adding The Good Human to your feed reader.

RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/arFO

photo credit: rbatina

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Stuff This in Your RSS – 10/7/08 – The Good Human

Green Twitter List Updated

Kim Woodbridge — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:26:58 +0000

I have finally updated the Green Twitter List. I am also planning on going through Twellow soon so I can add even more green users to this list. In addition I have updated the opml file for the blog feeds of the green twits.

Users added are:

Please post in the comments if you know of anyone who should be added to the master list.

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Green Twitter List Updated

More Green Twitter Google Spreadsheet Fun

Kim Woodbridge — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:45:25 +0000

In yesterday’s article, Green Twitter Google Pie, I mentioned that I had created additional gadgets from the Green Twitter RSS feed imported into Google Spreadsheets.

The first is a word cloud of the top green tweeters per last 20 tweets – this uses the same spreadsheet data used to create the pie chart. I wanted to create a cloud from the actual tweet but common words such as the and and the most common in the cloud. I don’t know how to remove them. I also don’t like the border around the cloud but I haven’t been able to figure out how to remove that either.

The second gadget is a table of the twitter username and the tweet. What I like about this gadget is that it can be filtered by field. What I don’t like about it that even though the tweets are linked withing the original spreadsheet they aren’t in the gadget

Finally, this is an iframe of the three primary fields from the spreadsheet. This is embedded html and is not a gadget so the tweet url’s are linked. The link will open within the frame but to return to the spreadsheet you have to right click and select back.

There are a lot more things that can be done with RSS feeds within Google spreadsheets. If anyone has any creative ideas, please let me know in the comments.

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More Green Twitter Google Spreadsheet Fun

Green Twitter Update

Kim Woodbridge — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:30:58 +0000

My Green Twitter post and opml file have been updated based on information from It’s Not a Lecture and AIDG.

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Green Twitter Update