Blogging Sueblimely

Welcome to Blogging Sueblimely. To keep up with my posts you can subscribe to my RSS feed and follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!

As I was preparing my recent posts on images I came across image generator tools you may find a place for in some of your less serious posts.

Yearbook Yourself

Its amazing how much I look like my mother once I add a 1960’s look.

Wigflip

A range of generators including:

• Superstickies

• Easy Street - street sign generator

• Say What - add speech bubbles to an uploaded photo
• roflbot Add text to an image -create lolcat or lolband type images

Dumpr

Another site with multiple generators. e.g.

• Rubics Cube Generator - upload an image and turn it into a rubics cube

Doppel Me - create your own avatar.

Reflection Maker

Image Chef

There are many different kinds of generators at Image Chef - example:

• Fun Generators

Comic Strip Generator - choose backgrounds, characters and add your own text.

Create a graph

Why would you want to do this for fun you may be asking - well, you may want to submit them to graphjam:

Big Huge Labs Flickr Toys

LoonaPix - add frames and borders and trim your images

Why would want to create silly images?:

• As a break from tedious work.
• You need more practice perfecting procrastination
• To add special effect images to your blog and possibly get them Stumbleupon Photoblogged - hint hint.
• You want to be a star contributor on:
  • icanhascheezerburger sites (lolcats, loldogs, pundit kitchen….), althouth they do provide their own generator (if you need to learn lolcat speak try the Definitive Lolcats Glossary) or take a PAWS Universitee course
  • graphjam
• Just to be silly - the only reason needed?

Thanks to the Generator Blog for putting me onto some of the image generator tools- it would have saved me a lot of time if I had found this site to begin with.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Here is a little bit of light relief for you to help you relax.

Smores keyboard - for when you have published something you regret and need to eat your words perhaps?

phonemyphone calls your phone for you on schedule. Think of the possibilities: You can tee up a call as an excuse for:

• Rushing off to the computer when you have an irresistible urge to blog.
• Keeping the kids quiet - "shhh, you know you shouldn’t be noisy when I’m on the phone" - it works sometimes.
• Escaping from a boring meeting/date
• Your ideas?

For those of you who have a different perspective on what you read, Wordle may be for you. Create graphic representations of words you choose or enter your del.icio.us name to create a customizable (although not clickable) tag cloud. Save it to the wordles gallery with a link to your blog (every link counts!)

For those of you who enjoy taking photos of yourself in mirrors (with your clothes on!) Karen Chan invites you to join her in her Facebook Group "Doing The Karen Cheng". You are not alone, there are almost 1,000 others there to give you support in your unusual pastime.

You may not thank me for this one - The Impossible Quiz I have got as far as the duck image - sometimes fun can turn to frustration :-). It was too large to embed here so the image is just a link.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Look what happens when Google leaves its teenagers at home. I know this video will slow down this page but could not resist posting it.

(Warning - It does include some strong language that may offend some people)

Popularity: 2% [?]

This cartoon pretty much sums up my feelings, after spending time importing and organizing feeds into Newsgator’s FeedDemon desktop RSS reader.

Cartoon by Dave Walker.

I was able to quickly import my existing subscriptions from Bloglines into FeedDemon, keeping the folder structure too - a large amount of feeds that I have collected over 4 years or so making many of them out of date, or no longer read, meaning a long reorganization for me.

Newsgator has recently made all its RSS suite of products free. In addition to FeedDemon they also offer NetNewsWire, the Mac version, NewsGatorGo for mobiles and NewsGator Inbox for Outlook.

All these RSS services synchronize with each other. For example, I can add feeds to Newsgator Online and they will appear in FeedDemon too. Other tools offered by Newsgator are Feedstation, which allows you to download multimedia content and synchronize it with your iPod or other portable media player and NewsGator Desktop (Beta) which resides in your system tray and informs you when there is an update to one of your feeds.

I thought I would give this method of reading feeds a try; although I still prefer to get some feeds delivered by email and some via email news reader, I found that I was not visiting Bloglines frequently to read the others.

Another useful tool from Newsgator is NewsFriends for Facebook users. “With NewsFriends, you just select friends and automatically get the news they are reading. You can also pick packages of popular feeds on topics like entertainment, sports, and top news selected by NewsGator editors or add news feeds directly.”

I could not resist reading instead of organizing and came across We Blog Cartoon by Dave Walker, which is where the above image comes from. Not only does Dave offer the use of the images for blogs but gives you the the link code to use the images directly from his site. After having a pleasant respite looking at his amusing cartoons, I had better carry on trying to get out from under the RSS pile. Before I go I thought I would share this one you too.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Popularity: 1% [?]

If you are asked what presents you would like for Christmas why not choose something that will make your blogging life easier:

A tux droid sounds like a perfect blogger’s companion. Take this cute little wifi penguin with you around the house and he will alert you of new RSS feeds and incoming email. Keep him by your side at the computer for when you are totally absorbed in writing posts. He will speak your Google calendar events out loud so that you cannot ignore your appointments. I wonder if he can be programmed to say “You have a comment”?

From firebox.com

For those times when blogging gets you hot under the collar there is no need to leave your desk to reach out for a cold refreshing “tinny”. Keep a can of your favorite drink at hand in a USB fridge. Very hand for ladies of a certain age who are getting hot ‘blog rushes’.

From Deals Direct Australia

For those of you who, despite appreciating what modern technology has to offer, long for some of the more traditional offerings of yesteryear, the USB Hoover allows you to combine the two. You do not have to leave your chair, interrupting your train of thought, to clean up the little messes caused by eating lunch at your desk while posting.

from find me a gift

I know, despite all good intentions, that I need to do more exercise. Blogging and its peripheral activities reduces the time available. How about this solution to encourage you to exercise without reducing the time available for blogging - The cycle powered laptop: The Polytechnic of Madrid’s winning entry in an Intel sponsored competition to find renewable and sustainable methods to power laptops. The runner up used hydrogen. I wonder if that would make for lighter laptops? My daughter has to wear all natural fibres at work because of her daily task of releasing hydrogen weather balloons. If I keep on talking like this I may be able to use my ‘hot air’ to power this laptop!

You can even find instructions for a do it yourself version on Instructibles

We received an early Christmas present yesterday, from a UK visitor from who is staying with us, (Thanks Gary). The gift, a light up running reindeer, will be gracing our roof with cheerful sparkle. Thinking it would look very lonely on its own out there, we have strung up other outside lights.

Christmas Warehouse

I must admit I do really enjoy these sort of aspects of Christmas and I always have decorated the inside of the house. Part of the child in me remains, which I think helps when you have children of your own. I wonder what my style of decoration says about me. I do not have to continue wondering after discovering that Allie D of Memories of a Gouda has given us her psychological assessment of personality; based on the type of Christmas Light display we favor - The Christmas Light Personality Test

Popularity: 2% [?]

It’s Sueblimely Silly Sunday time again.

Have you noticed that Subscribe to Feed buttons are becoming larger and larger on many blogs. I know the theory is that if you place the button in a prominent position towards the top of your sidebar then you are likely to get more subscribers. Now it looks as if that the trend is to try to coax readers to subscribe before even reading the blog; by having the button so large they distract you from the content. (you guessed, I am exaggerating but they are getting bigger).

I remember a time not so long ago when the buttons were like this:

As I do like to keep up with modern trends in the blogging world I thought I would join in. Do you think it large enough?

PS - The subscribe button in the sidebar will be removed later this week - it does not lead anywhere either. I did not want to take advantage of you by having a working big Subscribe button.

humor, SSS, sueblimely alexa

Popularity: 3% [?]

Wanted for questioning by the police - the person who stole John Cows brand new bike.

If anyone sees a brand new bike with a classy green lock and jumpy brakes please inform John Cow immediately. (well wouldn’t you be jumpy if you had been kidnapped, especially so soon after being adopted by a bovine?) No doubt the lock is broken too but it is no wonder; such forced separation is traumatic.

John may have to forgo his milk and request donations towards purchasing a new means of mooving around his field.

I am sure any information on the bikes whereabouts will be applauded - I can just imagine the cow clap now.

Details of this heinous crime can be read here

Dancing for Rank

I have recently been considering purchasing this T shirt, not necessarily to gain rank butI thought it may help me meet bloggers in real life.

I will know who they are as they will be the ones whose expressions show they understand the meaning of the T Shirt’s message.

Now back to the serious business of blogging. Coming up next week.

• Moving over to Wordpress - (or why blogspot bugs me)
• Info on the whys and wherefore’s of blogging from your own domain (or why I am silly enough to pay for something I can get for free by using blogspot)
• Other stuff I have not decided on yet.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

humor, SSS, sueblimely alexa

Popularity: 2% [?]