happykatie :: katie rocks out the interwebs

Open source action for online foodies

This weekend brought many interesting events and discoveries - everything from sewing class at Sew Crafty to a giant/swollen knee to fried tofu yumminess to giant cupcakes.  But what I'm most excited about as I blog are 2 new sites I ran into that I'm already using like crazy:

1. Open Source Food (www.opensourcefood.com) - A really gorgeous social networking site centered around recipe sharing, food rating and cooking.  It's a very new site, but is already populated by some really amazing recipes and members. 
   
   Almost better than the food (to me at least) are the terrific photos members post - it is truly a visually pleasing site, which is important to visual learners like me who miss not watching cooking shows to get the true idea of how to create a dish.  The membership base is pretty international, bringing in a variety of different cuisines and new ingredients to try out - really super.
   
2. The Daily Plate (www.thedailyplate.com) - A simple site to help keep track of your caloric intake and exercise regiments.  Have a goal weight by bikini season?  The site guides you through what you should be eating and how you should be active to help you make it there. 
   
   They have different features for paying members, but none of them are really what I need at this point.  The site's super powerful search feature makes it easy to search for restaurant dishes, major brands and other more commonly consumed foods.  If you can't find what you've eaten during the day, it's no problem to add your own item - with calories and fat info required to help other searchers too.

Maximize thy RSS, maximize thy brain's randomness

Love these slides on finding the 'Weirdest Stuff on the Web' from a great blog post on Read Write Web about maximizing your RSS feeders for ultimate awesomeness. 

I especially like the tips on over-subscribing (because you just never know what good tidbits are out there from a variety of sources) and utilizing multiple tools to gather that info - I particularly rely on del.icio.us popular links and Twitter for super timely brain candy.

As a info junkie who has lately been chastised for not keeping up with her Google Reader, it really is important to streamline your RSS reading process.   But what helps me the most with info surfing is the magic 'read all' button for days that get a little too bogged down for such endeavours.  Feel the release!!  then start all over the next day :)

Battle of the awkward periods - deli.cio.us vs. ma.gnolia

Wow, so after years of committed social bookmarking monogamy I have finally cheated on del.icio.us, with ma.gnolia.  I am tired of waiting for any upgrades on the del.icio.us site (I mean, seriously... it's been years) and for some reason my del.icio.us blog feed hasn't been working lately, which just isn't cool with me.

I am pretty pleased so far with ma.gnolia, the interface is certainly much nicer.  It was pretty lame that I had to spend a bunch of time manually re-privating my previously privated bookmarks after importing them into ma.gnolia, but I think that's all taken care of now.

The one feature I am desperately missing is being able to see how many other people are linking to my same links - this is often how I found the best content and most interesting people.  And speaking of people, while I'm not sure how many users are on ma.gnolia it seems that absolutely none of my friends are.  So I'm kind of lonely.

So I'll most likely be flip-flopping for a while, searching out another solution until I can find one that works.  Any suggestions to ease my  troubled bookmarking soul?

Thanks AMA Houston Tech SIG for the Business Blogging conversation

The AMA Houston Tech SIG hosted a great Blog Forward presentation today with 3 panelists of various Blogging heritages including myself (www.happykatie.com and Schipul), Greg Price (of PKF and www.fromgregshead.com) and Michael Berry (of Ops Manager at Clear Channel and of KTRH blogs).

Many thanks to Rob Roberts and the AMA Tech SIG crew for hosting the event.  I'm hoping that participants walked away with some actionable Blogging ideas for their own business online marketing adventures.   Scroll to the end of this post to view my presentation slides or visit me on Slideshare here.

In the end, it's all about the right people and the right content.  Once you have those right, the possibilities are limitless.  Recruit from within, grow your peoples' personal brands and BLOG!!  I highly recommend checking out this article by Ed Schipul on what to do when starting a Social Media program for additional background.

In case your geekery meter hasn't overloaded yet, here are some links that I shared while on stage:

Blogging Tools

1. Typepad (which Schipul uses and I use for 2 blogs):  www.typepad.com
2. Wordpress (a great free blog platform that I use for 1 blog):  www.wordpress.com
3. Movable Type (a little more complex, but great for group blogs):  www.movabletype.com
4. Blogger (free, but I'm not a huge fan):  www.blogger.com

Blog Analytics Tools

1. Google Analytics (free and greatly improved!):  www.google.com/analytics
2. Feedburner (free tool to track your RSS feed #s):  www.feedburner.com
3. Stat Counter (another freebie):  www.statcounter.com

Link Grab Bag

1. Flickr (online photography community):  www.flickr.com
2. Slideshare (like YouTube but for Powerpoints):  www.slideshare.net
3. Technorati (a search engine for Blogs):  www.technorati.com
4. Del.icio.us (social bookmarking site that rocks):  http://del.icio.us

Thanks to all who participated - I look forward to seeing you on the Blogosphere :)  And, of course, feel free to drop me a line sometime:  happykatie at gmail.com.  Photo thanks to Ed Schipul - click here for more AMA Houston pics!

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Scrapblog wants you to 'Get Crafty!'

Check out Scrapblog's new 'Get Crafty' vidcast!  Their premiere episode looks at online photo cropping tools that Scrapblog has recently updated.  I look forward to when they showcase not only their own *awesome!!* software, but bring in outside designers and external creative influences as well. 

About Scrapblog's 'Get Crafty!':  Get Crafty! is the new show produced by Scrapblog that will showcase designers, new features and crafty ideas for preserving your digital memories. Get Crafty will introduce you to online scrapbooking and new techniques that will rekindle your love of crafting.

It's embarrassing that i haven't Scrapblogged more, but you can always find me here:  www.scrapblog.com/happykatie.  Perhaps now that I've gone public I'll shame myself into working some more Scrapblog magic...

I still heart things that are del.icio.us -- links for 2008-03-26

My del.icio.us auto blog posts are on the fritz and it makes me antsy...  so I'm posting today's post manually so you can have them and I don't get sad when they don't show up.  Yes, I am just that anal. 

Most of my links revolve around food as it is a pretty hot topic on my mind right now with the Cleanse coming up and everything.

1. Healthy Recipes For Great Eating - vegan and mostly raw
   Always nice bumping into another raw food cooking site - they sell a good-looking cookbook too.
   tags: vegan+recipes vegan cooking+vegan recipes  

2. swell vegan
   tags: cooking+vegan vegan cooking recipes food blogs+vegan foodblog 

3. Don't Get Mad, Get Vegan
   tags: vegan blogs+vegan blogs+cooking food recipes cooking  

4. Cake Maker to the Stars
   tags: blogs+food blogs+vegan vegan recipes food

5. Vegan Myths: vegan nutrition + vegan health misconceptions
   Vegan myths that won't die
   tags: vegan health nutrition articles  

6. SoulVeggie
   tags: vegan food blogs+vegan

7. the urban vegan: 25 money-saving kitchen tips <br>for frugal vegans
   25 ways vegans can save money (and be happy, healthy and full)
   tags: vegan diy finance cooking 

8. Babble Playground
   tags: parenting community  

9. Hezbollah Tofu
   Vegan recipe dedicating to translating Anthony Bourdain recipes into vegan loving
   tags: vegan cooking+vegan 

10. Moby's Vegan Blueberry Pancakes Recipe at Epicurious.com
    tags: cooking+vegan vegan recipes 

11. Vegan Molten Chocolate Cakes « Diet, Dessert and Dogs
    tags: recipes vegan+recipes vegan cooking+vegan

The Web upon waking up - Love to Mo Mo and congrats to the Guy Kawasaki-ed gals!

Waking up to Twitter can be a good thing and a bad thing - kind of like having hundreds of incredibly short messages on your voicemail waiting for you right when you get up. They could all be really funny drunk dial jokes from your friends or they could be things that you just can't stand hearing.

Either way, it keeps my life updated thank goodness:

Send some love to CosmoPolitician (here on Twitter) today.  According to sources, she's doing quite well and will be spending the next 2 days eating bons bons and being pampered at St. Lukes (or something like that...).  Hope you're feeling better super quicklike!

Also, be sure to drop Laura Mayes/GirlConQueso a congrats on having Sk*rt being Kawasaki-ed. 

Also also, the same goes for the local Mama Drama girls too.  On that vein, you can even read how my absolute favorite Jenny The Bloggess had the cajones to ask Guy if he invented motorcycles.  All in a day's work :)

Also also also, I would like to send a big shout out to the Internet at large for helping me fix my Smena Symbol camera today.  Yay for you and your awkward English translations of deadstock Soviet camera manuals!

SxSWi 2008 was awesome (aka: pimping)

SXSW Interactive Festival 2008 was super, as always.  While the quality of panel content wasn't as consistent as I would've hoped, the people, events and general camaraderie  were outstanding.  As were the beer, wine, Nuclear Tacos and the 400 times we ate at Iron Cactus.  Also as were (if that even makes sense), the awesome fuzzy pimp hats and bling we indulged in for Ed Schipul's 'Pimp My NonProfit' panel.

I live blogged several panels and updated them this evening with photos, better descriptions and general grammatical edits so as not to appear a complete lame-o poster.  Specifically:

1.  Weird Turn Pro panel with Derek Powazek
2.  Henry Jenkins opening remarks
3. High-Tech Craft session moderated by Natalie Zee Drieu

Feel like you missed out?  Some ideas on getting your SXSWi 2008 fix: Flickr, Technorati,  re-visit Meebo chats or check out Pulse SXSW for video clips.

To all of the friendly new faces I came in contact with, you really made this a special weekend.  Thanks for the giggles, jokes, advice and brilliant ideas - I'm constantly inspired by every single one of you.

Find the above SXSWi 2008 mosaic in my Flickr stream here - also thanks to CC loving Flickr photogs techslut and wangjy!

High Tech Craftiness at SXSWi 2008

They blinded me with crafty geeky science!  A group of lady crafter fanatics chatted online technology and the role it plays in the ever-growing DIY community at SXSWi 2008.

I've heard various review on the panel, but it's funky and inquisitive nature really hit home with me.  Panelists brought in objects they've been working and a lots of super how-to resources for DIY/crafty typs everywhere.

Natalie Zee Drieu  Senior Editor,  CRAFT Magazine
Syuzi Pakhchyan SparkLab
Alison Lewis  Producer,  IHeartSwitch
Mouna Andraos Electronic Crafts
Diana Eng  Fashion Designer,  Diana Eng

Read on for cool projects the panelists brought to share and other awesome goodness.  Photo thanks to Natalie Zee's Flickr stream

happykatie on Facebook for business in the Houston Chronicle

Cool beans, I got a mention and a couple of photos in the Houston Chronicle yesterday.  Thanks to Imelda, I got hooked up with a really super reporter named Cori Shropshire who was looking for random ways that older (= non-college aged) people used Facebook.

We emailed and chatted on the phone a couple of times, which mostly meant me subjecting Cori to a lot of Facebook happiness and Schipul personal branding blabbing.  This is what she got:

Katie Laird, a 25-year-old Web marketing consultant, jumps on and off the site all day, helping her clients, many of whom are older and less tech-savvy than she is, boost their Internet visibility. "I love it when gray-haired men ask me if I'm on Facebook," she said.

There, "you get more done and have more fun," she said, after conceding that really only about 40 percent of her Facebook time is purely work-related.

"Sometimes ... we have big marketing pushes. I'm on there for business all the time, and other times its 100 percent random personal stuff," Laird said.

"So much of my personal is also work stuff ... there's no black and white these days."

That fuzzy gray area is Facebook's appeal, users say, since the site's features allow them to be themselves. Enthusiasts say LinkedIn.com is too stodgily professional and MySpace is a circus, although several say they use both.

Facebook, said Laird, is a more pleasant alternative to the wild-and-crazy days spent ... well, perusing other social networking sites.

"Facebook is far less time-consuming than YouTube," she explained.  To be productive, she suggested limiting Facebook check-ins to twice-a-day.  "Everything in moderation," she said, then laughed.  "Must leave time to blog, too."