Pet Monologues

The attached video is of dolphins playing with silver colored rings which they have the ability to make under water to play with. It isn’t known how they learn this, or if it’s an inbred ability. As if by magic the dolphin does a quick flip of its head and a silver ring appears in front of its pointed beak.

The ring is a solid, donut shaped bubble about 2-ft across, yet it doesn’t rise to the surface of the water! It stands upright in the water like a magic doorway to an unseen dimension. The dolphin then pulls a small silver donut from the larger one. Looking at the twisting ring for one last time a bite is taken from it, causing the small ring to collapse into a thousands of tiny bubbles which head upward towards the water’s surface. After a few moments the dolphin creates another ring to play with. There also seems to be a separate mechanism for producing small rings, which a dolphin can accomplish by a quick flip of its head.

An explanation of how dolphins make these silver rings is that they are ‘air-core vortex rings’. Read the rest of this entry »

To put a face to the name of the person you are blogging with, here is my screenshot of a post I am developing about, yep you guessed it, piggies.

These piggie images are 800px wide, about the average “source” image size. They will be displayed at 400px. If this blog was a two-column layout, the images might have been displayed at 600px. To put the screenshot in perspective I am using a 24 inch Cinema Display and all those icons along the right side are SOME of the applications I use. One dreads upgrades.

I have several analytical helpers to tell me who visits PM. Info includes, pages visited, referrers, search key words, country, computer software, size of screen, incoming links, outgoing links, with many many options I don’t use yet. You get the idea.

It comes as a surprise, from my traffic at least, the Internet Explorer browser is used less than 10% with Firefox in the 80% range. If you are developing ( coding ) sites, that is good news if you know what I mean. 1/2 of my visitors are unique. 60% from the USA, I am in Chicago. 15% from direct links, 45% from other sites, 40% from searches. Stumbleupon visitors are my biggest repeat referrers.

Oh, and if you have anything on piggies, please let PM know.

Well, that’s enough about me. Put a face to your name and let’s hear a little more about you. To do that here are easy to follow instructions to contact the same folks plus new friends. Read the rest of this entry »

If you think the Pug can clean your monitor, wait until you see the cat clean your monitor.

The cat’s tongue…

When our cat scarfs his moist food placed on his chrome Wetnoz serving-plate, the surface looks like a mirror. There is nothing left, just a haze-free shine. You could not get the same results with sandpaper, yet that is what his tongue can feel like on your face in the middle of the night.

A Grooming Tool and More
A cat’s ability to groom itself is the result of numerous knobs called papillae on the surface of a cat’s tongue. Located at the tongue’s center, the papillae form backward-facing hooks containing large amounts of keratin, the same material found in human fingernails. These hooks provide the abrasiveness a cat needs for self-grooming. Read the rest of this entry »

This post celebrates World Animal Day and Bless the Animals. Follow the links to learn more about PM’s initiative which started on October 4 07

Designers and their following have a go at animal-powered messaging.

Everybody’s Poultry Magazine, January 1952 Dairy Today, January 2008

Was problem solving different 50 years ago? In design you didn’t have the computer at your finger tips. Nor Google. Nor blogs.

Blogs offer speedy feedback whether you wish it or not. Speaking of blogs, one can’t help noticing which blogs consist of one sentence, grunt or bleep commentary and those which are a bit longer winded. Blogs that generate the most in-depth discussion are politics, religion, science, technology, art and design. Probably because of their philosophical and analytical nature. One does wonder what a pet blog would look like if political, religious, aesthetics zealots would permeate the commentary.
Think it’s possible to intellectualize poop?

The upside to the rhetoric and commentary the blog format provides: opinions, inspirations, recollections, facts, networking, and not least of all, reading pleasure. Want another opinion? Pet bloggers, are grunters.

If you wish to have a front row seat in a discussion focusing on animal imagery visit designobserver Everyone loves to observe a good conversation! BTW we are supportive of the new cover design by D. J. Stout, Pentagram.

PM loves it because where there is conversation there is growth. We are all for raising animal awareness and continue to collect works that showcase animals in commercial messaging media via Bless the Animals.

I know what RSS means.
If you already know what RSS is and just wish to subscribe to Pet Monologues then click here.

What Does This Mean?
You may recognize the universal feed icons or these “chicklets” from your favorite Web sites, blogs and podcasts. These icons represent content in any format—text, audio or video—to which you can subscribe and read/watch/listen using a feed reader.

Why is This a Good Thing?
Technology evolution in online publishing has made it really easy to not only publish regular updates to web-based content, but also keep track of a large number of your favorite Web sites or blogs, without having to remember to check each site manually or clutter your email Inbox. You can now streamline your online experience by subscribing to specific content feeds and aggregating this information in one place to be read when you’re ready.

• Consumer Bottom Line: Subscribing to feeds makes it possible to review a large amount of online content in a very short time.
• Publisher Bottom Line: Feeds permit instant distribution of content and the ability to make it “subscribable.”
• Advertiser Bottom Line: Advertising in feeds overcomes many of the shortcomings that traditional marketing channels encounter including spam filters, delayed distribution, search engine rankings and general “in-box” noise.

Who publishes feeds?
Most of the biggest names on the web offer content feeds including USATODAY.com, BBC News Headlines, ABCNews, CNET, Yahoo!, Amazon.com (including a podcast!), and many more. In addition, hundreds of thousands of bloggers, podcasters and videobloggers publish feeds to keep themselves better connected to their readers/listeners/admirers/critics. Apple, through its iTunes Music Store, offers tens of thousands of audio and video podcasts for download, each of which is powered by a feed.

How do I read feeds?
If you want to browse and subscribe to feeds, you have many choices. Today, there are more than 2,000 different feed reading applications, also known as “news aggregators” (for text, mostly) or “podcatchers” (for podcasts). There are even readers that work exclusively on mobile devices.Some require a small purchase price but are tops for ease-of-use and ship with dozens of feeds pre-loaded so you can explore the feed “universe” right away. Free readers are available as well; a search for “Feed reader” or “Feed aggregator” at popular search sites will yield many results. A handful of popular feed readers are listed in the sidebar on this page.A typical interface for a feed reader will display your feeds and the number of new (unread) entries within each of those feeds. You can also organize your feeds into categories and even clip and save your favorite entries (with certain applications).If you prefer, you can use an online, web-based service to track and manage feeds. Online services give you the advantage of being able to access your feed updates anywhere you can find a web browser. Also, upgrades and new features are added automatically.

• Show me what a typical feed reader looks like.

How can I publish my own feeds?
If you have a Web site, blog, audio/video content or even photos, you can offer a feed of your content as an option. If you are using a popular blogging platform or publishing tool like TypePad, Wordpress or Blogger, you likely publish a feed automatically. Even other, non-blogging sites like social photo-sharing service Flickr offer feeds of content you produce that others can retrieve. There are also tools on the market that can help transform traditional web content into the right format for distribution.

Here are two aggregator services that allow publishers who already have a feed to improve their understanding of and relationship with their audience. Once you have a working feed, run it through an aggregator and realize a whole new set of benefits.

• Feedburner: Learn more about FeedBurner’s services.
• Bloglines: Learn more about Bloglines’s services.

And finally, some technical backstory
The new method for easily distributing online content is often called a web feed and the technical format that makes it possible is called RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary, and/or Rockdale, Sandow, and Southern (Railroad) if you trust the good folks at AcronymFinder.com. RSS is based on XML, a widely used standard for textual information exchange between applications on the Internet. RSS feeds can be viewed as plain text files, but they’re really designed for computer-to-computer communication.

We should point out that RSS is just one standard for expressing feeds as XML. Another well-known choice is Atom. Both formats have their boosters, and it does not appear that consolidation toward a single standard is imminent. However, most feed subscribers simply want fresh content and don’t care at all about the underlying protocol. (FeedBurner helps publishers avoid this quandary with our SmartFeed service, which makes any feed format readable on any subscriber device.)

How to explain RSS the Oprah way!

We are going to explain how RSS can help you live your best life online.

We all have busy lives with very little time. Web surfing is fun but can take hours going to visit every single website and blog you enjoy. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if you could just get all the headlines of the most current stories from all your favorite websites and blogs in one place?

Well now you can, and it is called RSS feed.

The Oprah definition
The technical acronym for RSS is “Really Simple Syndication”, an XML format that was created to syndicate news, and be a means to share content on the web. Now, to geeks and techies that means something special, but to everyday folks like you and me, what comes to mind is, “Uh, I don’t get it?”

So, to make RSS much easier to understand, in Oprah speak, RSS stands for: I’m “Ready for Some Stories”. It is a way online for you to get a quick list of the latest story headlines from all your favorite websites and blogs all in one place. How cool is that? (Click on image for larger view)

Suppose you have 50 sites and blogs that you like to visit regularly. Going to visit each website and blog everyday could take you hours. With RSS, you can “subscribe” to a website or blog, and get “fed” all the new headlines from all of these 50 sites and blogs in one list, and see what’s going on in minutes instead of hours. What a time saver!

That one place where your RSS list is created is called an RSS Reader, and it gathers all the headlines from all the websites and blogs you have subscribed to. In a moment, I will describe how to get an RSS Reader.

Subscribing to RSS feeds
But first, to “subscribe” to a website or blog’s RSS feed simply means that you are telling that website or blog, “Yes please. Send me your story headlines.” It’s like subscribing to a magazine or newsletter. Instead of getting a magazine or email, you will just get a list of headlines sent to your RSS reader. If the headline looks interesting to you, all you have to do is click on the headline and you’ll be sent to the whole story.

In order to subscribe to a website or blog’s RSS, all you have to do is click on an RSS symbol like one of those shown in the diagram above, or a text link of the words “Subscribe to our RSS feed” on the website or blog. Typically, you can find these RSS symbols or text links in your browser window, on the sides of the website page, or on the bottom of the page. The publishers of the websites and blogs really want people to subscribe to their RSS, so they will make it very easy for you to find the subscription links.

RSS Readers
Now, because nothing is ever standard on the web like dealing with different operating systems, Mac vs. PC, and different flavored browsers like Internet Explorer, AOL, Safari, and Firefox, the way to get an RSS reader will be dependent on what browser you like to use, and how accessible you’d like your RSS list(s) to be.

Just like there are flavors of web browsers, you may see and hear of different flavors of RSS XML feeders like RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, and Atom. Again, the flavors are only important if you want to get techie. If you stick to looking for an RSS symbol like I have shown you in the diagram, you will be just fine.

If you’d like your RSS list to be accessible from any computer or mobile device you may have like a PDA, laptop, or cell phone, some popular RSS readers include (and almost all are FREE):

MyYahoo, MyMSN, MyAOL, MyGoogle, Bloglines, FeedDemon (this one costs money), NewsGator (there is a cost for mobile accessibility), NetVibes, PageFlakes, Shrook (For Mac users. Free trial and then there’s a cost.), Lektora, Attensa (more for enterprise, and there’s a cost)

Update: If there are any other good RSS readers I’ve missed, please let us know and we will add them.

As you can see, there are a plethora of choices for you. All are good RSS readers, so your choice will simply come down to the style that appeals most to you.

RSS as Live Bookmarks
Browsers like Safari and Firefox allow you to subscribe to RSS feeds through the browser, and it’s called “live bookmarking”. Currently, you can only do live bookmarking in Internet Explorer if you have IE7 which is still in Beta. Oprah translation: Non-geeks cannot do live bookmarking in Internet Explorer because it’s not done yet. The limitation with using RSS in live bookmark form is that you only have access to your RSS list from the computer you created the bookmarks on. If you want the flexibility of complete accessibility, then I recommend going the RSS Reader route.

Here’s an example of an RSS live bookmark feed for the celebrity gossip site TMZ.com using the Firefox browser on a PC.

Here’s an example of RSS live bookmark feed for the Yahoo Entertainment Celebrity page using the Mac Safari browser.

So there you have it. Are you now Ready for Some Stories? Enjoy!

This post is part of the ProBlogger “How to” Group Writing Project. Please visit Problogger for other wonderful “How to’s.” Technorati Tags: Live bookamrks, Oprah, Problogger How to group writing project, RSS, RSS Reader. Posted by stephanie.quilao on September 21, 2006 in Web/Tech for everyday living.

This might seem a little off topic but towards the end George mentions “pets” so PM thinks this is right on topic! A dose of year-end wisdom.

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we’re kids? If you’re less than 10 years old, you’re so excited about aging that you think in fractions.

“How old are you?” “I’m four and a half!” You’re never thirty-six and a half. You’re four and a half, going on five! That’s the key!!

You get into your teens, now they can’t hold you back.

You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.

“How old are you?” “I’m gonna be 16!” You could be 13, but hey, you’re gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life . . . you BECOME 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony. YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!! Read the rest of this entry »

While reading one of my fave magazines I stumble upon an article that pet lovers would enjoy. This article was taken out of Wired Magazine and titled “A Canine Hotel May Sound Luxe, but There’s No Place Like Home”

***

Room Z5 is empty except for a faux-suede floor pillow, a 14-inch flatscreen TV, an IP network camera, and a 9-pound miniature pinscher sitting motionless by the steel door. After a few minutes, the pooch gets up, walks across the room, and settles on the pillow, almost covering the white letters that spell out w-a-g. Kitschy dance music wafts in from the hallway. A dog yelps in the background.

Illustration by Jessica Hische

Wag is a new pet hotel in San Francisco that promises the ultimate in canine luxury. It has an atmospheric-filtration system that recycles the facility’s air 10 times per hour. Temperature-controlled rooms remain at a comfortable 69 degrees Fahrenheit. The suites ($85 a night) even have “Wag Cams,” accessible from an Internet browser, so that curious or concerned owners can check on their furry companions.

Tonight I’ve booked my dog, Ruby, into Wag. I scheduled her for an in-room belly massage ($12), a moonlit walk on the antibacterial Astroturf rooftop ($15), and room service (one pig’s ear and a bowl of water). This should be a great night—I’ll have the evening off from my dog-parenting duties, and Ruby will make new friends and be pampered by Wag’s experienced staff. Read the rest of this entry »

Chapter 9: The stories that nourish a newspaper.
By John Armstrong

[This is the ninth of 14 excerpts, running Tuesdays and Thursdays, from John Armstrong's memoir of the working life: Wages.]

When a cement truck lost its brakes on a hill and ploughed through someone’s backyard, you needed the parents and relatives of the dead and wounded, the name of the driver, the owner of the company, the neighbours (to fill out the background and describe the terror they faced daily with Big Trucks roaring though their neighbourhood) and someone from government licensing to comment on why he and his department hadn’t checked this truck’s brakes.

It was also important to get the Opposition critic for that department who would describe how the government had failed so tragically in this case, despite his repeated warnings that such a disaster was coming, and how his party would do things differently if they were in office….

The same was true of any local tragedy whether it was the man who hacked up his wife and mailed her postage due to her parents or an immigrant woman who spoke and read no English and bled to death in the emergency room because she couldn’t fill out the admittance papers. Read the rest of this entry »

This must be “fix the blog” week. PM is having site maintenance issues. Here is a 13 item laundry list to boost your blog from Samantha and Tigger over at Life from a cat’s perspective. But first, to preface this next post a little terminology should be clarified. For example, what is a “meme”? Urban Dictionary offers this definition along with some others:

Meme (a noun):
1 : an idea, belief or belief system, or pattern of behavior that spreads throughout a culture either vertically by cultural inheritance (as by parents to children) or horizontally by cultural acquisition (as by peers, information media, and entertainment media)

2 : a pervasive thought or thought pattern that replicates itself via cultural means; a parasitic code, a virus of the mind especially contagious to children and the impressionable

3 : the fundamental unit of information, analogous to the gene in emerging evolutionary theory of culture
- meme pool (n.) : all memes of a culture or individual
- memetic (adj.) : relating to memes
- memetics (n.) : the study of memes

4 : in ‘blogspeak,” an idea that is spread from blog to blog Read the rest of this entry »

I just found a neat cat video site. This is what caught my eye…

[youtube]ENBJVld67f0[/youtube]

Seen on catontape.com