Who is Nick?

Asking all my life.

Author: Nick Kempinski

  • Mozilla Seabird Concept

    This looks pretty sweet. A really nice concept in mobile computing.

    Source: https://www.youtube.com/

  • 2 Cards in One.

    I guess if a single card will hold multiple accounts, i should need to remember yet one more pin.

    Source: https://www.youtube.com/

  • Brand you! Not Twitter. Not Facebook.

    I’ve been listening to TheZone.fm and I heard something interesting “TheZone.fm/twitter” and “TheZone.fm/facebook”

    Wow!

    This is a great way to put your stations brand first. As a bonus, if you didn’t snag the right twitter account name or facebook page name, your listeners don’t need to know.

    But now the nitty gritty: How do actually get it done?

    Consider this post a requirements document, or a detailed solution. Give it to the folks that manage your website, and they should be able to use at least one of these solutions

    The old HTML fake out

    Make two folders on your website called “twitter” and “facebook”. These should be in your home folder ( sometimes called html, sometimes called website, sometimes called yourstationrocks.com, it all depends on your host ).

    Open a text editor, anyone will do, and copy the following code:

    <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>Your Station on Twitter</title>
<meta http-equiv="REFRESH"
    content="0;url=http://www.twitter.com/MyStationRulesTheAir">
</head>
<body>
Get ready for some tweets!
</body>
</html>

    Replace http://www.twitter.com/MyStationRulesTheAir and “Get ready for some tweets!” as you like.

    Save it as html

    Next, place it into the twitter folder.

    Edit the file again with your facebook address and maybe a nice facebook message like “Face this book!” (nah)

    Save

    And place it in your facebook folder.

    Blam! Done!

    Let the host do it for you.

    Some hosting companies actually provide you with redirect options in you website administration. If this is the case, it all depends on what they use. Sometimes it’s a homegrown program, and other times, it’s something else.

    Sign in and hunt for any variation of these terms: forward or, redirect.

    It could be under file management, but I’ve also seen it under domain management as well.

    When in doubt – pick up the horn and ask if they can do it.

    .htaccess – I always see it but never use it

    If you see this file, then you can do some nifty things. You’re going to want to download it, edit it, and then put it back where you fond it.

    Depending on what you’ve got running, when you open it in a text editor, there may already be some stuff. If that’s the case push it all down a line and add the following lines of code

    Redirect /twitter http://www.twitter.com/MyStationRulesTheAir
Redirect /facebook http://www.facebook.com/MyStationRulesTheAir

    Of course, replace it with your facebook and twitter locations.

    Save it.

    Dump it back onto your host.

    But I’ve got programmers

    In that case, pick up the phone, or walk over and say “Make it so #1”. They might giggle a little. They may also call you Picard or Jean-Luc. When they do, just tug twice on the bottom of your shirt and walk away. ( this of course will loose all meaning if your on the phone )

    And then…

    No and then. That’s all I’ve got. You can take my word, or wikipedia’s word if mine isn’t good enough.

    I hope to see more stations using this method because it puts your station above twitter & facebook. Plus adding a quick “slash twitter” in the bit or sweep is a lot easier for the folks on the mic.

    If you come across any other solutions, I’d like to know. As always, the comment box is ready when you are.

  • The new Twitter.com

    The new Twitter.com video. I like it!

    Source: https://www.youtube.com/

  • Blekko: slashing the web

     

  • Do you see it?

     

  • Which Canada do you “like”?

    Here’s something to consider about Facebook fan pages. According to The Montreal Gazette, Canada has only 334 fans. But in taking a look at Government fan pages for Canada, which one do you follow?

    While all of them say they are “government” which one is really the government? There is no ownership info; no info what-so-ever.

    I’m reminded a little of Seth Godin’s Tribes, before you start raging ahead of the pack to lead, do a quick search to make sure someone else hasn’t already started. And, if they have, just click “like”

  • Admitting the F%$#& Up?

    Magic Utilities

    Yesterday, I admitted to a deep dark secret… well not really. It was an admission that I was having problems with my website. But did I say anything on @breakingthedial? Nope. Why? It would have helped. And it got me thinking of something that I battled with at school.

    Here’s two schools of thought that I think are battling it out in radio.

    The Magic of Radio vs. The Truth ( aka Transparency )

    To those in the know, there is a magic that happens when you listen to a great radio show. It just flows from song to sweep, through the commercials. And it’s like a wonderful tide that washes over your ears. And you are unaware of the folks running around booths, or mic failures or Burli blips. And it’s the “making it look easy” that gives it a magical quality

    But on the web, nothing is magic. There is the truth behind everything, and to pretend that you are an all knowing, infallible creature means your hiding something. Enron and Kathy Lee Gifford taught us that.

    When something goes wrong, what do you do? Are you the cat that rolls off the end of the table and won’t admit that anything happened? Or do you admit the oops and move on?

    I’m sure there is lots of grey area, that it’s not just one or the other. How do you respond?

  • 8-bit Music Video

    In honour of Scott Pillgrim – I’m still on a bit of a geeky high

    Source: https://www.youtube.com/

  • My XML + XSLT Question: Can it be evil?

    I’ve been playing with XML & XSLT on and off for 6 years. I’ve toyed with parser scripts. I think, at some point, I even wasted a few days making an ant compiler to generate a static site for a client of mine… but that’s as far as it went.

    Recently, I decided to play again and set up an experimental playground over at ethernick.com. What’s fun about it ( “there’s no place like 127.0.0.1” kinda fun ), is that it’s all XML. Right now, there isn’t a single html page. I’ve parsed out RSS & RDF, plus i’ve even applied XSLT to a quasi-HTML index page. But don’t let the letters fool you, it’s not HTML.

    What caught my eye, was that although the very first page is “.xml” and it uses XML doctypes and XSLT calls, Google decided to index it as if it where HTML. So I added a fake

    What I ended up thinking is – if Google sees something else, is this a potential hole for scamming? Here’s the story I play out in my mind:

    Say I work for a seedy business. And at that business my job is to lure unsuspecting people to see my site. These unsuspecting people may be even be fooled to click on a link or two. And while people are clicking away to unauthorized sites and scammy links, Google doesn’t see any of it. They are unsuspecting, because to them, it’s a little page with a couple of paragraphs.

    Now…I admit this isn’t fully thought out. I admit that there are holes. I’m wondering, in real world practicality, why would someone make a page for real-estate, and then show them porn. It’s more of a surprise factor than anything. So, is it really a problem after all?

    I don’t know. But I guess that’s why it’s an experiment. I guess the discussion is open.