The Cramer Family

It’s March! And yet here we are playing out in the snow (well the boys are playing and I’m taking the picture from the warm insides of the home)

I’m throwing it all away and starting from scratch. I think this will be the best way to understand what is going on in the wordpress style sheet and truly end up with a site that is all my own.

By throwing away all the styles I can hopefully force myself to put the pieces back together the way that I like it. I have a basic picture in my mind, we’ll see if/when it all comes together

Yesterday we found out that Tammy’s mom’s colon cancer from several years ago has made a reappearance and made its way into her lungs. This is a very scary disease and we are very worried about her through this. For me knowledge is going to be the biggest comforter, so if you have any words of advice, inspiring stories or what not, please feel free to share.

Most helpful of all would be your thoughts and prayers for her in this difficult time. We are planning on having a fast as a family sometime in the future and we will let you know the details as we find them out.

Now from that misleading title you may think that something I did made it to the front page of digg but it was actually just a story that I submitted.

You can digg it here:

http://digg.com/mods/Hack_up_your_MySpace_profile

Over 1400 diggs last time I checked!

And yes I know how lame it is that I’m excited by this. I’m a geek, so sue me.

Working on getting the site upgraded to 2.0 so things may look a little wonky for a bit.

Stay tuned!

Update: I’m up and running on 2.0.1 with the K2 default theme and lots of plugins. Now I just need to get it personalized

I’m just going to start out by saying that it is hard to find an online calendar that looks good and works well. But anyone who’s attempted to share the family calendar can understand the level of frustration that this search can cause. It doesn’t seem like a hard problem to solve, but there has yet to be a good calendar that can do everything that I want it to.

That was the case, but now things are going to change. And there is one reason for the change 30Boxes

This is really going to fit my needs perfectly. Not only does it do the calendaring in a straightforward, intuitive way (Think Natural Language -esque processing for entering events) but it ties together other bits and pieces from your online world. (Flickr, blogs, myspace, weather….)

Here’s some of my first impressions right off the bat.

1. Great way to add events

To enter an event you type into ONE text box and then it just goes ahead and figures it out. Where else could you write “Super Bowl 4pm-6pm” and have the program figure out exactly what you are talking about?! (ps I know that the Super Bowl is longer than 2 hours).

You can say things like “Dinner tomorrow at noon” and it figures it out! When you add “Dan’s Birthday” it asks you if you want the event to repeat yearly! It’s these simple little touches that are going to make this sooooo easy to start using

2. Mashing with other services

You can enter a TON of additional information to your profile to provide more info for each day for your ‘Buddies’. When you enter your Flickr username it will show an icon on the days that you have posted pictures. And then when you click on the day you can see your pictures! It also is smart enough to get your flickr buddy icon and use that as your buddy icon on 30Boxes unless you tell it otherwise. VERY COOL and a nice subtle touch.

You can also enter your blog feed and have the days show the titles of the entries that you typed that day with a link back to the blog. Now no one can have the excuse that they didn’t know you were writing something. It’s right there on the calendar.

3. Ajax goodness

It’s very cliche at this point, but AJAX is changing the browsing experience for the better. The team of 30Boxes has done a great job with making the whole application function like a single desk app. The workflow if very well thought out and anyone can jump right in and start using the app.

4. Open API

Nothing there quite yet, but there is a firm commitment to open up the API to let other’s have access to the app. This is AWESOME! It will allow developers to take the application to places that the original developers would never have thought of

Concerns

How is this app going to hold up against the enormous popularity it’s going to receive? I’m not an expert on multi server, web farm type ideas, but this has the potential to cause a lot of grief for the team. I realize that it is in a “Beta” phase but that doesn’t really mean anything anymore. If it crashes then that is going to be the impression that people have of the app. Period. I hope that they are ready for the trouble that comes with popularity (like I’d know what that is
So go and check it out. I highly recommend the app, especially if you are looking for a new way to organize your (and your friends/family/groups) calendars

Update: Another initial impression review can be found here

What the heck right?

.: UNEASYsilence :. » Blog Archive » Giveaway: Limited Edition iPods

My college roommate has made his second step onto the online stage. At first he would write at xanga, but was feeling confined by the format provided there. One domain and wordpress install later and Ben Reynolds is up and running. In fact he even gave me a very touching tribute here. I will admit that I liked his original blog name much better “Brazenly Apathetic”, but I suppose it wasn’t fitting in to the mature level of writing he’s trying to portray. Like this and this and don’t forget this.

So go check it out, he is a great writer and very funny. It’s the funny…but it makes you think kind of thing. And what’s not to love about a writer with the great tagline:

My infallible opinions. Feel free to adopt them as your own. There’s no shame in that.

We found a bakery outlet that sells Duck Bread (whole old loaves for $.10 a loaf). The ducks and geese at wheeler farm were sooo hungry they were practically mobbing the boys. Lots of fun.