Posted by Gabe on January 28, 2010 under Kids are Heroes | 
I was just told a story by someone close to me who would like to remain anonymous. The identity of the person doesn’t really matter, because the story itself is what is important. We will call our hero Mischa.
The weather has been bitterly cold around these parts the last few weeks. About a week ago, Mischa spied a homeless woman outside, legs exposed, who appeared to be suffering from the cold. Mischa thought, “I wish there was something I could give her!” Not wanting to be faced with that circumstance again, Mischa went off to the thrift store and bought some sleeping bags and blankets to carry around in the car with her, in case she became faced with that same situation in the future.
Today was Mischa’s day to go to the library. As she was leaving she discovered three homeless people keeping warm inside. She has noticed them in the past as they come in to use the facilities and get out of the cold for a couple of hours. Mischa asked “Does anyone need an extra blanket or a sleeping bag?” All three said yes. So Mischa went out to the car and brought two blankets and a sleeping bag back to these people who were very grateful.
When Mischa relayed the story to me she told me that she didn’t know if it was right to feel this way but she felt really good after having done it. I told her that she had every right to feel good. Why wouldn’t you get a sense of warmth inside if you knew that you had just really helped someone? I’ve always felt that people should revel in that feeling because it will make them want to do it again.
So here is such a simple idea that can have a great impact on someone else’s life. Mischa pays $2.00 for “gently used” sleeping bags and blankets at the local thrift store. Keep them in your car and you never know when your day will be brightened by helping someone else.
Posted by Gabe on January 25, 2010 under Kids are Heroes, Social Media |
Back in September of 2009, I spotted the first “shout-out” to one of our heroes from Mrs. Poulin’s Kindergarten class. I thought, “Wow this is really cool!” Save for holidays and break periods, the kids from that class have been sending words of encouragement to our heroes on an almost daily basis. If for some reason something special causes them to run out of time, you know the kids give Mrs. Poulin an earful. “Hey! We didn’t do Kids Are Heroes today!” And she then assures them they will make up for it the next day.
I have admired Gail for her innovative use of our web site. Each morning, they choose a story that moves them and they respond to it. And the shout-outs are not just “Good job!” and “Love what you are doing!”. One can clearly tell that the sentences are derived from the conversation they had and that they clearly understand what each hero is doing. What a great way to teach young kids. And it’s not all about being in the audience, either. They have been inspired to participate as well. One of our heroes, young Hannah Turner, really made an impression on them — so much so that they decided to collect socks and distribute them to local shelters. (In the end they donated 124 brand new pairs of socks to 3 area shelters.) I really wish every school in the country was aware of what one woman from Massachussetts is doing. She even has a blog (read in her words how Kids Are Heroes is affecting her students) and the kids are on Twitter!! (Mrs. Poulin also has her own Twitter account.)
The other day, the class gave a shout-out to new hero Daniel Dietz. Daniel is a teenager who is quite skilled with a yo-yo. He performs in front of crowds and collects donations for the “Smile Train”. (This is an organization that provides the means for kids to get surgery to repair cleft palates.) Well Daniel was excited that he got a shout-out from these young students, especially because he just happens to live near them. His mom asked how he could “shout back”. When we designed the Shout-Outs section it was supposed to be a one-way avenue to help our heroes feel good about what they are doing. But as we discover in life many things that get designed one way get used in another. So I pointed Daniel to the Comments section. If he referenced the shout-out that would give the kids a way to interact with him. Daniel did leave a comment and I alerted Mrs. Poulin to look for it. (Encouraged by this, we have since implemented a more seamless way for heroes to interact with others. Conversations will be published in the Kids Are Heroes Café.)
When I told Gail that Daniel had indeed left a comment, this was her response:
In this particular hero instance, the kids said, “I hope he writes back.” This is an awesome experience all around. Not only for the social emotional aspects but also as:
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a literacy tool – reading and writing for meaning
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technology – using tech to communicate with the world and learn more outside of our own little zip codes
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the empowering experience of having kids serving as the heroes which can make our own goal setting a reality.
I couldn’t agree more. In addition to that, I am envisioning the confidence that will build in our heroes as they interact with kids from all over the country. Boy am I hoping that this is a trend that takes off.
Read the shout-outs from Mrs. Poulin’s class (and from others) here.
Posted by Gabe on January 22, 2010 under Social Media, Twitter |
Recently I wrote a post about the pros and cons of having your tweets protected in Twitter. I don’t have a personal bias as to what you should do regarding this, as it is not my place. However, if your tweets are protected, I think there’s something else you should be aware of.
I received a direct message from one of my Twitter colleagues asking me to point her to my blog post about hash tags. She was desperately trying to get involved in the recent tragedy in #Haiti. I sent her to the post. She read it and told me it was great, but her tweets were not showing up in the search column, even though she was using the hash tag properly. I asked her to call me so we could investigate. Sure enough I went to her profile and she was doing it correctly. She also noted to me that her friend was unable to retweet her posts. I again went to her profile and couldn’t find the retweet button either. “Maybe there is something wrong with your Twitter account” I told her. These were words she did not want to hear. Anyway, after a bit more investigating I noticed her tweets were protected. Aaaahhh! Now that makes sense. Why should your tweets show up in the public timeline if they are protected? Twitter is working as it should in both cases.
However, I was able to retweet her posts in Tweetdeck with no problems. And people using the Twitter interface, although they can’t use the native retweet function, they can certainly do it the old fashioned way by copying and pasting. So again this proves that your tweets are not truly protected no matter what.
So be warned that if you do protect your tweets you will not have the opportunities everyone else has of getting retweeted and joining a conversation based on hash tags.
Posted by Gabe on January 20, 2010 under Social Media, Wordpress |
I have been hearing a lot of talk about “landing pages” lately. You can make one for Twitter, for Facebook and even your blog. These are pages that provide a first impression when a user “lands” on your site. Well today I set out to find out how to have one on my blog. I’ve always felt that the directory of posts I provide would be a great landing page, instead of the most recent post I have written. I write about a lot of different things and this directory will help the reader find something that is of most interest to him or her.
So I searched the web for “landing page in Wordpress”. The links that came up most told me I had to change my theme. That didn’t cut it for me. After a bit of digging, I found the solution buried in Wordpress help, and was excited that it is rather simple to accomplish. Here are the steps to create a landing page for Wordpress:
1) Create the landing page itself as you would a normal page.
2) Create another blank page and call it “Blog”.
3) On your Wordpress dashboard, go to Settings…Reading. Right there you see you have a choice of ‘Your latest posts’ or ‘A static page’. Select ’static page’ and choose the landing page you just created. Just underneath that, under ‘Posts page’ choose the blank page you just created, ‘Blog’.
Your theme should automatically add that page to your header. Now when you go to your main blog site, you should see the landing page you created. When you click on the ‘Blog’ page you will see all your posts as you used to. For an example, see how it is implemented here: http://www.justgabe.com Good luck!
Posted by Gabe on January 17, 2010 under Social Media, Twitter |
Yesterday I discovered the value of the Facebook Share button. I have known for quite some time about Tweetmeme’s Retweet button (as seen on this blog) as a Wordpress plugin but hadn’t thought of using it on my regular web site. That is until yesterday.
The Tweetmeme retweet button allows users to easily share the current URL with their Twitter followers by composing a tweet and bringing up the Twitter interface. You can still edit the tweet before you send it out. The button code for your web site can be found here. What’s nice about it is that you have several easy options to modify the button. (I chose to have a compact button.) You can even change the identity of the retweeter which defaults to @tweetmeme. This is nice because that allows you to have other users promote your own Twitter ID as well as the URL. That’s what I call a “twofer”. If you click on the number that prefaces the button, it will take show you who tweeted your link. It would be nice if you could set the background color or have that be transparent, but that doesn’t appear to be an option just yet. Update: According to their own support dep’t., it’s supposed to be transparent but not all browsers support that. I verified this to be true. Works fine in Firefox, no go in IE8. (If you need the plugin directory for Tweetmeme, it’s here.)
So now I have an easy way to share the Kids Are Heroes web site with both Facebook and Twitter. And yes, that’s a hint. :)
Posted by Gabe on January 16, 2010 under Facebook |
You would think that because I am a software developer by trade I would be the first to know about all the latest and greatest technologies. Unfortunately that is rarely if ever the case with me. I think it is because I see that many times technology is created more for technology’s sake and less for its practical use. I see technology at its best when it improves our lives in one way or another.
So maybe that is the reason why I have been largely ignoring the “Facebook Connect” technology. Maybe yes and maybe no – I guess I never really understood what it was and what it could be used for. So this morning I set out to learn more about it.
I still must admit I haven’t fully explored all of its capabilities, because when I saw the “Facebook Share” button I absolutely had to implement it on our web site. It allows users to easily share your content on their Facebook walls.
Here’s how it works. You place a Facebook Share button on one of your web pages. We did it on the “shout-out” pages which are individual pages parents can send to their families that highlight just their hero. Here’s an example:
When a user clicks on that button, something similar to the following appears:
The user is able to add a comment and share it directly to their Facebook profile. How cool is that? The good news is that it is not that difficult to implement. Just follow the simple steps provided on the Facebook Share page.
Now if you are a Wordpress blogger (like me) and you want a plug-in that will do the same thing, go to your Admin page, under Plug-Ins click ‘Add New’ and search for ‘Facebook Share’. You will get several results. I tried a few of them and wasn’t perfectly happy with any of them. The reason being is that I wanted it to be able to pick up a particular image (not make the user select from whatever is on your page). This was relatively easy to do when I implemented it on our site because there is a “linkrel” option that determines the picture you want to go with it. This is more difficult to set in a blog environment (especially for me) because I try and have a picture on every post and there is no way to assign a particular picture directly to the Share feature. It would be nice if they implmented a custom field for this.
So I settled on the AddThis plug-in, which not only shares to Facebook but it also allows the user to share it with other platforms.
Posted by Gabe on January 12, 2010 under Social Media, Twitter |
I spotted a tweet in my Twitter stream that caught my attention today:
@so-and-so Love some feedback on my blog:) http://unshortenedspammylink/wordpress:) Leave Comments!!!!
I know that Twitter is a service we can all use as we wish, but this tweet violated so many of my own private rules I had to look further. Looking at this person’s profile there was sadly (and predictably) a long list of the same requests to other “so and so’s”. The proximity of the smiley face to the link broke the link itself, so I never got to see what was so great that everyone should want to go and leave comments on this person’s blog. The person has been tweeting since June of 2009 and despite this long list of tweets the other interactions he/she has had seem to be genuine and quality interactions, at least as far as I looked back.
Rather that dissect what is wrong (if anything) with what this person is doing I would like to pose a question. Assuming you truly believe that “this person just doesn’t know any better”, is it appropriate to leave a gentle DM telling her that what he/she is doing might be a bit spammy? I’m not going to try to taint anyone’s opinion one way or the other by giving mine, but on other occasions I have been tempted to do just that, even if I didn’t know the person.
So what do you think? Is it appropriate to nicely tell someone about something like this, as a friendly gesture, if you have never had interactions with them? Or do you simply unfollow and move on?
Posted by Gabe on January 8, 2010 under Kids are Heroes |
When I first started blogging in July of ‘08, Kids Are Heroes was in its infancy and I was still heavily involved with Wags for Hope, a local pet therapy organization. I wrote a blog post titled “Volunteer for Selfish Reasons“. It didn’t get much play since I wasn’t even on Twitter yet, but the sentiments behind the post still ring true. It may sound politically incorrect, but if people don’t get something in return for their volunteer time or for their financial donation, then they probably won’t keep doing it. As I write this I just saw a “tweet” coming through on my Twitter stream that read: “Volunteering is not a choice. It’s a responsibility.” Ashley E. Hyder was given the credit for that quote. Well I’m sorry Ashley, I couldn’t disagree with you more. As a matter of fact let me rephrase your quote to my liking: “Volunteering is not a choice. It’s a privilege.” In my experience, if people feel they must volunteer, it will become a burden for them and they will stop doing it. I have always felt that if a person feels like they volunteer out of a sense of obligation then they are doing it for the wrong reasons and they won’t last. I am in my fifties now, and outside of a few years as a big brother I did nothing in the way of volunteering. Am I ashamed of it? Absolutely not. Do I feel guilty for the “selfish” life I led? Absolutely not. Do I think it’s other peoples’ duty to volunteer? Absolutely not.
So why the change for me? Why do I do it? The answer is because it changed my life for the much better. I remember the first time I brought my dog Charlie to a nursing home and he brought an ear-to-ear grin to a woman who had been paralyzed in an auto accident since 1984. The warmth that immediately surged through my body was indescribable. The pride I took in my best friend Charlie was unmatched. Do I get something out of volunteering? The answer is “every time I do it”.
So what about Kids Are Heroes? You might be asking “what can Kids Are Heroes offer my children? The stories are nice and heartwarming, but what do my kids gain from joining in?”
The answer is a better life. A much better life, regardless of socio-economic status. I came to realize this gradually as I heard back from featured children’s parents, and as I watch my own daughter develop. J.T. Robertson is one of our heroes from New York. His mom won’t mind (I hope) that I repeat the gist of a conversation we had recently by phone. She related to me that she lives in one of the poorest counties in New York. Kids in her neighborhood are overlooked because the general feeling is there is no hope for them. For a number of years now, J.T. has been raising funds so that disadvantaged children can enjoy something he treasures — a train ride on the Arcade and Attica Railroad. This event takes he and his mom all year to plan. That is not all thirteen-year-old J.T is involved with. He brings toys to the hospital and plays with the children, among other things. (See J.T.’s profile on the Kids Are Heroes site.) He speaks at events and one of his speaking points is the Kids Are Heroes web site. It’s not “look at the recognition I got” — it’s more ”look at what you can do and how it can affect others.” His mom flat out told me that Kids Are Heroes is a great opportunity for kids in this situation to rise above the statistics that plague them. His efforts got him on Good Morning America. As a child when you see the results that you are really helping others, it gives you the same feeling as if you were an adult — it’s a really good feeling that boosts self-confidence and develops leadership skills.
When my daughter MaryMargaret started our web site she was just nine years old. She is now eleven. She has been involved in many volunteering efforts in those two years, and she would join us at the nursing homes before that. She has learned to think outside of herself which is hard to do for many kids. She has gained respect and empathy for older people, and kids who are very sick. Her confidence has risen immeasurably due to the speeches she is asked to give about what she does. She has just completed a year-long effort to raise money to buy MP3 players for kids at the Children’s Hospital in D.C. When she was just six, she spent a harrowing ten days there and thought that the gift of music will help that time go easier for these unfortunate kids. We just purchased 200 MP3 players, and when we get them we will fill them with donated music and she will get to deliver them. What a sense of accomplishment and confidence that will instill in her!
So what does this all mean? Am I in this for the “wrong” reasons? Am I only passionate about Kids Are Heroes because of the benefit to my daughter? I would be lying if I said that part didn’t matter to me. Of course I am happy that her efforts will help her develop into a well rounded, socially responsible citizen. But I can’t ignore the other perks. One of them I just mentioned — it’s very heartening to know something we created has touched a boy like J.T. in such a way that he wants to tell others about it. I enjoy every opportunity we get in meeting the other wonderful kids and their families who are involved with KAH. I get that same warmth I described earlier when my daughter brings smiles to cancer-stricken children by bringing them Webkinz she paid for from the donations she collected. I get warm feelings every day when people encourage what we are doing. I get a sense of hope dreaming about the global effect we will have some day.
So shouldn’t volunteering be a thankless activity? Shouldn’t we just do it without wanting anything in return? Maybe that works for some people, but not for me. As I have said before, I’m not that nice of a person.
Posted by Gabe on January 1, 2010 under Droid |
My Home Screen
I admit it. I really rushed my first post on the Droid. I did that on purpose because I think it honestly did show the things that are likely for people to struggle with at first if they are a little slow like I am. Now that I have taken a breath, read extensively, discussed on forums and played with it I am ready for another post. This one I hope will not be edited as many times as I did the first. The first post had to be changed many times as I uncovered sometimes false solutions which I outed and ultimately real ones. Something as feature rich as the Droid has to engender some sort of learning curve. I am just hoping to shorten that curve for others just a bit.
In this post I hope to provide just a few tips that would have been nice if I had them when I first played with it. Next I will give you a list of apps I particularly like and finally my decision on whether or not I am keeping it.
The first tip I will repeat from the first post is that in order to view the Notifications you must drag them down with your finger. I am repeating this because several people told me they appreciated the tip and didn’t know about it previously. I want to make sure everyone who reads this knows about it. The second tip is regarding your home screens. You have three of them (I believe there is an app to extend that but I am not covering that here). Your main screen is what you see when you unlock your phone. (Mine is shown above). You have a screen to the left (drag the home screen to the right) and a screen to the right (drag your home screen left). The first thing that took me a while to discover is how to organize these screens. If you “pull up” your main applications screen all you need do is touch and hold an application to place it on the screen that is showing. For example, If you want to put an application on your “left” screen, drag your home screen right, pull up your applications screen, touch and hold the app and you will be able to drag it to whatever spot you want on the left screen. It doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of room, so that’s why they have those apps that extend them. When I fill up what I have and need more I will figure out how to use that.
Adding Shortcuts
One of the handiest shortcuts you can have is a Navigations shortcut that will get you back home from wherever you are. From any home screen touch and hold a blank area. Click “Shortcuts”, then “Directions”. Type in your address, choose the other options and click Save. You can move it around the screen by touching and holding the icon. To delete the shortcut, drag the icon to the applications folder arrow at the bottom — when you do that it will turn into a Trash icon. To add shortcuts to web sites, do the same thing as before but instead of choosing “Directions” choose “Bookmarks”.
I know these are fairly basic things but we all need to learn them at some point. If you are seeking something more specific and/or more advanced, feel free to ask in the comments and I ‘ll see what I can do to help.
The Menu Key
I just read the manual (Hey – there’s a manual!) and discovered the name of the key with all the lines going across it at the bottom of the phone. It’s called the Menu key. Not knowing what that key was for gave me all kinds of grief at first. If you are stuck in an app and don’t know what to do hit that button – it will give you lots more options.
Ok I believe these are the basic tips that you need to start being productive. Now for the apps.
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