Explainer Video: Managing your mobile Facebook news feed

| November 8, 2014

For the past several years I’ve tried to keep Facebook as the social networking place for family sharing, although I did include some close friends. Over time, I’ve added a few more who connected from my past and am finding its no longer just a place for staying up-to-date with the family (I’ve heard  old […]

Think about it – Internet devices and anti-social networks

| October 5, 2014

Giphy.com or Gfycat and an emergency carry technique

| September 25, 2014

Here’s another Giphy.com test after using it for a Facebook share yesterday. I’ve found it a little be better than gfycat.com that I’ve used before since the purpose was to post to a social network.  Besides, I thought this was an interesting demo: A technique for carrying a person/body quickly in an emergency.

Sailing knives and using animated GIFs on Facebook

| September 25, 2014

I posted a question on a Facebook group today for liveaboard sailors regarding sailing knives using Giphy.com’s animated GIF to Facebook posting. I’m not sure how many other GIF hosting services are out there for Facebook but Giphy worked well. There are times on a rolling sailboat where using both hands to open a folding […]

Sleek and innovative gravity fed water saving faucet idea

| September 4, 2014

Here’s an idea that came from one of those “pagination” oriented list sites … which has become the bane of Internet reading; I’m talking about those sites with multiple pages of photos or news sites requiring a bunch of page clicks in order to read an article – in my opinion the practice needs a […]

S.W.E.A.T. — Mike Rowe has ideas that needs to be heard

| August 25, 2014

Uncommon brilliance from a voice “for” the common man … that would be Mike Rowe. His answer to a reader Facebook post from earlier this month is worth reading. Off The Wall Interesting conversation over on the wall. It was started by a guy called Jayson LaVictorie, who has posted a few thousand words about […]

Jacob Tolliver pounds the piano in an Ohio hardware store

| August 19, 2014

Don’t you wonder what it must have been like to be picking up a few hardware items in Portsmouth Ohio and hear this coming from a young man and an unfinished piano? Impressive. (after being told the FB was no longer working for someone, I’ll archive the video below the embed) Post by Steve Hayes.

Good grief … what else should our government subsidize?

| August 8, 2014

Even after the Sandra Fluke plea to congress over free birth control, is hard to believe the 2700 pages of Obamacare overlooked including feminine sanitary products? [/sarcasm] Tweet from noted feminist Jessica Valenti: Twitter friends: Anyone know a country where tampons are free or somehow subsidized? — Jessica ValentiJessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) August 8, 2014

Viewers opine on $FB vs $TWTR as an investment

| July 29, 2014

My morning routine includes turning on CNBC for my business news, trading and investing “fix” and the segment on the Facebook vs. Twitter social networking challenge peaked my interest. As expected, the focus was primarily which stock would make an investor the most money. Obviously Facebook has a significant lead both in platform maturity and […]

Choking up the Internet and wireless highway with Tweets

| July 15, 2014

I didn’t think I spent all that much time posting comments to Twitter, but over the years it does add up. I noticed that my Volkswagen Crossblue post Monday hit the 9000 mark (below). But then it occurred to me that those tweets don’t include the automatic notifications sent out by WordPress MyDesultoryBlog.com … add […]

Are you addicted to social networks and technology?

| May 6, 2014

Food for thought … A poem posted to YouTube by Gary Turk. “Look Up” pertaining to a “Generation of idiots, smartphones and dumb people.”

Archive: A short video history clip on Sidney, Ohio

| April 7, 2014

I don’t necessarily call Sidney, Ohio “home” since I only spent the last couple years of high school there and then was off to college, but I do returned regularly to visit my dad who has been there over 30-some years.  I’m not really sure exactly what I should call a “hometown” … something my […]

Earhoox: A cure for loose fitting earbuds

| April 5, 2014

Although only one of my ears is truly working as it is suppose to due to Ménière’s disease back in the late 1990s, I still enjoy “an” earbud in order to listen to music, news or the occasional phone call on my iPhone.  Unfortunately the newer Apple earbuds do not fit my ears as well […]

Reflecting on my personal journal and blog through the years

| February 20, 2014

Those who are regular readers of My Desultory Blog realize that besides posting commentary on newsy items, be it tech, cars, aviation, politics or whatever, that I also include personal entries and photos relating to my family. This blog, now 4000 posts, is a continuation of a journal that I started in 1977 as a […]

Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee update @jbmco

| February 17, 2014

Last week I posted a quick coffee review on CCSpecialty Coffee’s 100% Hawaiian Kona Fancy coffee and promised that an update on the Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee would follow. Over the weekend we had an opportunity to try the new beans over dessert after my wife’s homemade spaghetti. Three of us taste tested and enjoyed […]

Closing in on 7 years with Twitter as @RichC

| February 12, 2014

It has been 7 years since I (@RichC)first started using the social network known as Twitter and in that time I’ve tweeted over 8000 times from my personal account and almost 2900 from @MyDesultoryBlog (RSS feed style blog updates). I’ve added 1600 to my stream (many news feeds) and am closing in on 1000 followers. […]

How to get rid of a headache without taking an analgesic

| December 22, 2013

Who says spending time on social networking sites like Twitter is a waste of time? Here’s a tip that makes perfect sense in theory (mind you, I have not tried it). I don’t often have headaches, but if I do, it would be nice not to resort to taking Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid), Tylenol (Acetaminophen) or […]

TechFriday: Get your Personal Google+ URLs now

| November 1, 2013

There are 3rd party options which redirect long strings for URLs, but most users prefer grabbing the official personalized ones when they are available. Facebook offered user names a couple years ago and Google is slowly getting it together by including real names. You should probably claim your name now if you want a custom […]

Twitter announces planned IPO (on Twitter)

| September 13, 2013

Short and sweet. As one would expect from the 140 character social networking company. — MT @Twitter We’ve confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO. But here are a few more tweets collected by the Associated Press. — #FunFact: In the first hour of @Twitter sending that IPO announcement tweet, 7,872 […]

Good news comes with apprehension for my son Taylor

| September 10, 2013

Taylor took a bold step toward his future by accepting a planning position in North Dakota. Since graduating from Miami University in May, the resumes and cover letters have been many, but openings in his field few. With the feedback always highlighting a desire for more experience, Taylor decided that starting his planning career in […]

A brilliant way to use a rake! #genius

| September 6, 2013

Why is Facebook losing teens?

| August 12, 2013

A few years ago Facebook rocketed to popularity as a social network for the .EDU college crowd … or .edu to be net savvy (lc). This emerging adult crowd was the envy of every high school teen and "wanna be older" pre-high student and having a Facebook account was a coming of age milestone. Parents […]

Met up with a high school/college friend after 30+ years

| August 11, 2013

Thanks to Facebook, I had a chance to meet up with a friend from high school (and grad school) that I haven’t seen in 30+ years. We had a mutual love for photography and both headed in different directions after school. She married and moved to Cincinnati and I married and started life in Cleveland. […]

Why is President Obama following me?

| July 21, 2013

Hmm, I’m not really sure what to think of this? I’m sure those who supported President Barrack Obama’s campaign don’t mind being followed by his twitter account, but for me it is probably an indication that the IRS or Department of Justice is next. For those of you who are not socially connected, the President’s […]

A couple bolts and a couple volts

| June 27, 2013

Impressive super cell photo from Nebraska (www.tonightssky.com) about a week ago. The photo is a sandwich of 2 shots about 9 seconds apart at f/22, 2.5 sec and ISO 100 according to the tech info shared on G+.

Weed Man does an obvious upsell or perhaps bait-and-switch

| June 25, 2013

When a deal seems a bit too good, there is probably a reason to be skeptical. Now to be fair, I knew that for $25 I was not going to get my yard completely treated, but was expecting this Cincinnati area Groupon deal to be a way for Weed Man to demonstrate their professionalism and […]

Tech Friday: Frustrated with WordPress search options?

| June 21, 2013

Are you frustrated with the basic search feature available in WordPress? If so, join the club. I’ve been back and forth with several different search plugins and have even tried customizing my own using a Google API. Unfortunately none of them worked well for me when I was searching my own site for items that […]

An Oahu, Hawaii photo that was too beautiful not to share

| June 20, 2013

Karen Hutton of KarenHuttonPhotography posted a gorgeous photo from Makapu’u Lookout in Oahu, Hawaii yesterday that makes me want to return to Hawaii. (our 2006 trip) Her description was nice too: I could almost see the curvature of the earth on the horizon… it was dizzying! And wonderful, and blue, green, gorgeous and stunning. I […]

Kickstarter project: Shorts with a waterproof pocket

| May 30, 2013

Although there might be a way to improve on the “hatch” in order to store a phone, wallet, car remote, etc … these Stash Waterproof Pocket Shorts are a great idea for beach-goers, water sport enthusiasts or … cough, cough … sailing. I’d like to think the new upstart company will raise the funding, but […]

Spina Bifida lip dub effort at Lakota East #wewantellen

| May 20, 2013

My son mentioned a video produced by his alma mater, Lakota East High School, and after first thinking it was just another goofy video, I realized that the community and student body effort was a lot of work – I even watched it to the end as the music gets more appealing to those of […]

Finding a few photos of an old friend, his canoe and VW Bug

| February 12, 2013

It’s not fun drying out our basement, but I am enjoying finding long lost photos. Here’s one of a canoe trip (one of many) taken during a 1977 spring trip to the Whitewater River in Indiana with Charlie “Kamakaze” Matthews. We spent our free time both canoeing and sailing when we were in high school […]

Google continues to flex muscle to bolster its G+ social network

| January 3, 2013

I’m not a big social networking guy, but I do send tweets to Twitter, post a newsy story or two to Google+ and send a photo or two to Facebook once a month for family (and to a lessor extent use a few other social networks) … but Google is using its behemoth size to […]

Facebook settings can confuse even a Zuckerberg

| December 26, 2012

If you are confused over the privacy settings on social networking sites, particularly Facebook, you are not alone. Short suggestion: Assume everything you post is public … because it can certainly end up that way … just ask Randi Zuckerberg. As networks grow and friends connect to other friends, eventually the images and comments you […]

How to turn number 1 to number 2

| October 21, 2012

Too good to pass up … sharing from a Facebook post. Posted via email from RichC’s posterous

Waze — a social turn-by-turn navigation mapping app

| September 24, 2012

After being a little (ok, a lot) disappointed with Google Maps being replace by Apple’s Maps app in iOS, I was anxious to give something else a try — so I downloaded, activated and have started to update Waze . So far so good with using the turn by turn navigation on my way to […]

Added the Shareaholic “Sexy Bookmarks” social button bar

| August 30, 2012

I’m finally getting around to adding a social media plugin for WordPress after I received a comment from a friend who said his Internet reading now comes from links being shared on Twitter and Facebook. I had to admit that I no longer use my long list of RSS feeds as often as I once […]

Why doesn’t this vinyl music thingy fit into my CD player?

| August 28, 2012

Facebook comes through again and offered a connection to the past (1, 2, 3). Recently I received an invite indicating my “XX” year Sidney High School reunion was being planned (35th if you must know). A Facebook URL was given so I dutifully plugged in my lightly used FB account and ended up adding a […]

Why Facebook stock at $23/share is still “currently” over-priced

| July 27, 2012

I spend a few hours each day focused on trading and inventing and have been regularly asked about my opinion on buying Facebook stock. My reply has often been that it is a great company and is one of the leaders (if not “thee” leader) in social networking, but Mr. Zuckerberg and Company hasn’t figured […]

Tech Friday: Cleaned up my tweetstream this week

| June 22, 2012

I’m probably not the only one who has “excessively” followed people on Twitter over the past few years … so I am trying to clean up my tweetstream with TwitCleaner. So far so good. Twit Cleaner [web] (free) If you follow a large number of people and are looking to clean up your timeline, Twit […]

Ohio’s new law regarding text messaging and driving

| June 7, 2012

I’m sure I’m not the only one noticing the growing number of drivers texting and driving distracted (and ‘yes’ I have unfortunately done my share). Of course it is not just messaging, but also looking at dashboard information displays and GPS devices … and even watching movies on video screens … but soon doing it […]

Enjoyed this WSJ article … and yes downloaded Jotly

| June 6, 2012

No longer available WSJ article

Memorial Day hits some deeper than others

| May 29, 2012

  I didn’t want to let this story get away from me so I will post it after Memorial Day. Taylor had a few friends over this weekend and they enjoyed the sunshine, played football in the rain, cooled off in the pool and watched a couple movies. Brenda and I are thankful our kids […]

The highly anticipated Facebook IPO was priced right for day 1

| May 18, 2012

Facebook made it stock market debut today with a $5 move from the $38 IPO price to above $42/share and then kind of drifted back to close the day at $38.23. There was plenty of interest. Lots of hype and even a NASDAQ snag to prevent an on time opening this morning. For employees of […]

Surprising what high powered website can do for blog traffic

| April 14, 2012

I noticed a spike in my normal web traffic the other day as a weekend post was mentioned on a high traffic website. As someone who posts to a tiny personal blog, it still amazes me how many clicks and visitors My Desultory Blog generates. Over the years I have also noticed that viewers are […]

Tech Friday: Zite – a personalized magazine app for the iPad

| April 13, 2012

There are a number of news reading and article assembling type apps available for computer, phone and tablet platforms. I’ve looked at a few, but tend to shy away since they collect too many articles. Zite is a free one for the iPad (and iPhone) that I’m starting to like … probably because I’m only […]

Twitter Buys Into Blogging With Posterous

| March 12, 2012

Hmm … I’ll have to keep my eye on this … Twitter Buys Into Blogging With Posterous Twitter said Monday that it has acquired micro-blogging service Posterous, but will leave it up and running. Both companies announced the acquisition in a pair of blog posts that were posted Monday. “Today we are welcoming a very […]

Happy 5th Twitter Birthday to me

| February 29, 2012

Just noticed this when cleaning out my inbox … 5 years on Twitter. Wow … it doesn’t seem as if RichC has been posting tweets that long until you see over 5000 of them! Hmm, but it looks like MyDesultoryBlog on Twitter is still a youngster? [

What does NASCAR, Tide and Twitter all have in common?

| February 28, 2012

All highlighted at the Daytona 500 of course! In an odd turn of events, Sunday’s rain delayed big race was delayed further due to more rain for the Monday afternoon start, but eventually got underway Monday evening, much to the dismay of my wife (she would have preferred something other then watching cars turning left […]

When college age kids socially get the approval of parents

| February 20, 2012

As I’ve mentioned before, one of the primary reasons I don’t post or visit my Facebook account very often is because it is the domain of my kids and their friends. I’m sure I would not have wanted a nosy parent watching everything I said and did … so I didn’t focus on it as […]

Tech Friday – about.me … adding yet another landing page

| February 17, 2012

As the years go by I find myself forgetting which of the links and information sites I’ve signed up for … and I’m probably not alone. Anyway, if you are online at all, it might be helpful to have a personal landing page, especially if you’re not interested in your own URL and web server […]

Pinterest – is it worth using another social kind of site?

| February 16, 2012

How much is too much social networking … and how will they all make money? Traffic to the website—which lets users create online scrapbooks to share images of projects or coveted products—has grown tenfold over the past six months. In January, the number of visitors on Pinterest.com was almost a third of that on Twitter.com. […]

Is FB – Facebook – ready to go public?

| February 2, 2012

Yup … FB .. that’s the stock exchange symbol for Facebook; the biggest IPO of the year, or past few years. This will be the largest web-based company to have an initial public offering since GOOG went public (believe it or not, GM in 2010 was the overall largest). It will instantly turn Mr. Zuckerberg […]

President Obama connects on a hangout with Google+users

| January 30, 2012

YouTube live at 5:30PM EST on January 30, 2012 Great use of technology, although it certainly does require respectful users … unfortunately a little too much “respect” ends up with friendly to President Obama questioners. The hangout is interesting as I’m only 15 minutes in, but its beginning to sound a little like a campaign […]

While thinking about good ol’ days, how about this?

| January 19, 2012

I came across the video below where a father explains LP records to his daugher and thought the old photos and shared memoies that I posted earlier … ugh,  are my 78’s that old? (that would be 78rpm records, not the year 1978!) For the record (pun intended), the 78 records mention above were my […]

Tell congress how you feel about SOPA and PIPA-for or against

| January 18, 2012

Against my inner voice telling me not to bother, I wrote to my congressmen yesterday regarding the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). There are areas that I agree with and understand, but also way too many areas that will impact what most of us appreciate about the Internet. As written, […]

Volkswagen gets a free Passat TDI advertisement via Tweet

| January 12, 2012

There’s must be an easy way for social media users to capitalize on advertising products or companies using social media …hmm? For example, yesterday morning I passively plugged a product by recommending the Volkswagen Passat TDI to Andrew Ross Sorkin, one of the CNBC Squawkbox anchors and NYTimes columnist.  He is looking for a safe […]

A visit with a friend had me reminiscing about other friends

| November 18, 2011

Our old house and 5 acres of property on Stow Road in Hudson Ohio On my trip to NE Ohio this week I had both the chance to enjoy dinner with my daughter in Columbus (always a pleasure) and meeting with Mark Goloback, an old friend from when we lived in Hudson, Ohio. I recently […]

A little Sunday humor

| August 21, 2011

Saw this photo on a friends G+ “Things that make you go hmmm!” post. Too funny.

Smartmoney article: 10 Things Twitter Won’t Tell You

| August 17, 2011

From “10 percent of users create 90 percent of Twitter‘s content” to “ICanStalkU.com” … there are a few good reason to read Sara Germano’s SmartMoney article. WSJThisMorning Sara Germano on Twitter Here’s a tip on paying attention when uploading photos from your smartphone: “… smartphone pics are embedded with GPS data, making it so easy […]

Spotify.com comes to America after winning over Europe

| July 16, 2011

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Desultory - des-uhl-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee

  1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
  2. digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.
My Desultory Blog