Jewl Of The Lotus

the sound that strengthens compassion in all enlightened beings. om mani padme hum.

 

Micro-blogging For Businesses

Earlier today I wrote an article for the MetaSpring blog called ‘5 Ways Your Business Can Embrace Micro-blogging’. In it, I discuss the micro-blogging trend and a few different ways that businesses can take advantage of it. Check it out and let us know how you’ve seen micro-blogging used in the business world.

 

I’ve Finally Converted!…sort of

Well… after several months of not being able to blog due to random Typo errors, I’ve finally made a transition to Mephisto CMS. It was a surprisingly smooth conversion once I found the proper combination of script hacks. There are still a few problems though, unfortunately. Mainly, that pagination seems to have “disappearred” with...

 

No, I’m Not Dead…Just Busy

NOTE: This post was supposed to go up like a month ago, but I’ve been having serious technical difficulties with my blogging software and did not have a chance to fix it all up until now. Update post coming soon, I hope. Here you go… Hi, how are ya? I’m pretty well. Yeah, I...

 

SaveNetRadio.org

Recent government action has dramatically increased (300-1200%) the fees internet radio companies must pay to play the music you enjoy. This means that sites like Pandora and Last.fm, as well as many other online radio stations, could be shut down due to bankruptcy. You can help, let your voice be heard. Visit SaveNetRadio.org to...

 

Robert Dempsey & Craig Ambrose – RoR Gurus Interviewed

About a month ago I conducted a couple informational interviews for my Job Search Strategies class. The first interview was with Robert Dempsey, Project Director of Atlantic Dominion Solutions a Ruby on Rails website and application development firm, and Founder and Director of Rails For All a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of...

 

JulieMarie.net – Overdue Launch Announcement

Well, I’m really not sure why I didn’t do this a month ago, or why it took me this long to think of it, but my new portfolio site is up at JulieMarie.net. I built the site with Radiant, a simple, Ruby on Rails based content management system and designed the layout myself. Check...

 

Twitter: My More Regularly Updated Mini-Blog

follow jewlofthelotus at http://twitter.com Well, since I don’t really have a lot of time to write more than one blog post per month, I figured I’d link you all to my Twitter page where I have the chance to post once or twice a day. You can find me at twitter.com/jewlofthelotus. Add me if...

 

Post-grad ideas (and the story of my college career)

Post-graduate plans are something that I’ve been thinking about rather frequently since the beginning of the new year. To really see where I’m coming from, I guess I should tell you how I got to where I am now…

 

ExpressiveConnections.com – Alpha Launch

Check it out, kids: ExpressiveConnections.com has finally been announced. Expressive Connections is a network for creative professionals – aimed at aspiring and accomplished writers and artists who are looking to begin or advance in a career utilizing their talent. The site is in a sort of alpha-mode right now. We think it’s got a...

 

New Semester, New Life

Well, it’s been an entire month since my last post. It’s not that I haven’t had anything to write about – I’ve just been really, really busy. We’re three weeks into the spring semester now and classes are going pretty well. I’m taking: TC448 – Scripting Web 2.0 ADV456 – Interactive Advertising REL491 –...

 

It’s Official, I <3 RoR (& Merry Christmas, too!)

Sigh. Wow. I’ve just successfully created a Ruby on Rails forum for the site that you’ve all been eagerly awaiting (don’t worry, it’ll be public soon – just a few more weeks!). It’s pretty simple thus far. I spent the last two days just working on basic functionality. Nothing fancy…yet. ;) This forum is...

 

Winter Break, Here I Come!

My apologies for the downtime. Over a long weekend of unsuccessfully attempting to launch my Rails app on Dreamhost, I managed to also break my JewloftheLotus site. Well now that my final (..my one and only final) is over, I had a chance to sit down and fix the problem. So, I’m back! Coming...

 

What NOT to do if you’re the MPAA

This is a satirical article posted on BBSpot that had WAY too many of us fooled… To sum it up: The MPAA defines a home theater as any home with a television larger than 29” with stereo sound and at least two comfortable chairs, couch, or futon. Anyone with a home theater would need...

 

Student tasered multiple times at UCLA library for not having his ID

Remember a few days ago, when we saw LAPD officers repeatedly punching an arrested man in the face before cuffing him? Well, that video prompted an FBI investigation. Here’s a new video, taken by a student’s camera phone, displaying similar police brutality, again, in Los Angelas. The student was asked to leave the library...

 

IDM #5 Blogs For Learning

Well, we’ve made it to Week 12/16 of the Fall semester here at MSU. And that means, that the fifth and final IDM is due in my Interactive Media I course. This weeks featured site is Blogs For Learning, an instructional blog for students and teachers that provides, “information and resources about the technical...

 

Comedy Central is BACK on YouTube!!

Just as we thought we’d actually have to tune in live to Comedy Central to see our favorite shows (ie. The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Southpark), Comedy Central and YouTube are now in talks to keep the copyrighted videos on the site. A lot of CC clips have been reposted so go...

 

Just A Few Semi-Random Things

Here’s a few things that I think are worth mentioning but don’t necessarily need their own posts. First, you know ads are going to reach the News Feed of Facebook users any-day now, when you see flyers all over your campus asking students to join the Crest WhiteStrips Facebook group. Here’s a link to...

 

IDM #4 RUSTBOY

You should have seen this one coming – it’s the fourth of five IDM(Inspiration Design Model) posts for my “Interactive Media I”:http://class.cas.msu.edu/tc346/ course! This week on the class chopping block: “Rustboy”:http://www.rustboy.com/, a Flash site for the Brian Taylor short film project.

 

My First Rails (+ HTML & CSS) App: Coming Soon!

So for the last week and a half, I’ve been building a Rails application for my HTML course – Interactive Media I. The “Final Project”:http://class.cas.msu.edu/tc346/?page_id=3 for my class is to create a “significant” website by manually coding HTML and CSS, in a small group. Well, we are definitely shooting for “significant.” I’m not going...

 

Friday the 13th

Well the bad luck of Friday the 13th started a day early this year. On Thursday the 12th (of _October_!), it snowed. This is the earliest snowfall Michigan has seen in somewhere around the last 125 years. I like snow…but not until the end of November, and only until the middle of January. Any...

 

IDM #3 Jason Santa Maria

Here it is, the third of five IDM(Inspiration Design Model) posts for my “Interactive Media I”:http://class.cas.msu.edu/tc346/ class. This weeks website is “Jason Santa Maria”:http://www.jasonsantamaria.com, a personal weblog/portfolio for a graphic designer in Philly. UPDATE: Jason has “commented”:http://www.jasonsantamaria.com/archive/2006/10/10/class_critique.php on the collection of critiques by our class and I urge you all to read his response....

 

The Facebook Revolutions

It’s been a few weeks since Facebook first started making _tsunamis_ in the sea of social networking sites. We’ve seen the “emergence of the News Feed”:http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2207967130 (and the massive “backlash”:http://www.somewhatfrank.com/2006/09/facebook_redesi.html that followed), the “implementation of an open admissions”:http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2210227130 policy (not so huge, but still a major area of debate – check out the comments...

 

Snapshot Seekers Theme of the Week Winner

|=.!http://jewlofthelotus.com/files/2006-09-24_themewinner.png (theme of the week winner!)!:http://community.livejournal.com/snapshot_seeker/ | To see the full size image visit: “JewloftheLotus at deviantART”:http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/40141906/?qo=15&q=by%3Ajewlofthelotus&qh=sort%3Atime+-in%3Ascraps :)

 

IDM #2 JUXT Interactive

Well, here is the second of five IDM(Inspiration Design Model) posts for my “Interactive Media I”:http://class.cas.msu.edu/tc346/ class. I liked this website a lot less than the first one: “smallTransport”:http://jewlofthelotus.com/articles/2006/09/07/smalltransport-idm, but I didn’t really like that one much either…

 

What Kind of FAN am I?!?

OMG, WTF!! I totally and entirely thought that Grey’s Anatomy started next week. *still catching my breath on this one* NO ONE TELL ME ANYTHING!!!!! I will see it soon enough… Until next time.Jewls

 

I like Writely

Whoa, this Writely thing is pretty sweet! As long as you have an Internet connection, there is no need to buy Word ever again!! Here is a good article that got dugg a couple weeks back: Google’s Writely If your regularly working with text documents this could be a handy tool to access your...

 

Music Makes Me Happy!!

Here’s an interesting interview (found on “digg”:http://digg.com/music/How_Music_Gets_you_High) with a record producer-turned-neuroscientist, who is currently researching how the brain and mind handle and interpret music. “Read the article here.”:http://www.wired.com/news/technology/medtech/0,71631-0.html?tw=wn_index_2 This guy is awesome. I am inspired just by his history alone. A guy going from a kick-ass job as a record producer for the Grateful...

 

How to Ruin Lives Through Craigslist

About a week ago, I posted an “entry”:http://jewlofthelotus.com/articles/2006/09/07/smalltransport-idm about a website for my Interactive Media I class. Well, this entry is _not_ for that class, but it is for another class of mine – Social, Cultural and Psychological Implications of Computer-Mediated Communication (more easily referred to as “TC491″:http://class.cas.msu.edu/tc491/). Recently, we’ve been discussing online identity...

 

Happy Cats

Well I just wanted to post an update so you all would know that the kids are getting along just fine. My roommate found them like this last night… !http://jewlofthelotus.com/files/2006-09-08_gibby_georgie.jpg (Gibby & Georgie)! Maybe one of the cutest things ever.

 

Facebook Gets "Generation Y" Off Its Ass (…Figuratively)

Thankfully, after three days of steady complaint, Facebook has done _something_ about the “News Feed” to calm our vexations. Early this morning, Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, posted to the Facebook blog (which was also simultaneously glued to the top of everyone’s “News Feed” – BUT with a nice little option to ‘Hide’)...