How to Embed Flickr Slideshows in your Blog
Thursday, 30th April 2009
Feature your Flickr Slideshows on your Blog Posts
I must say that I always knew about the Flickr slideshow feature, and once-in-a-while I’ll view my photos via slideshow. But, somehow I overlooked the fact that you can embed a slideshow into your site via web pages or blog posts.
Very Simple, Straight-Forward Procedure
I’m sure this is pretty straight forward stuff for all of you, but just in case you’re unsure where to go I’ll show you. I don’t really see too many bloggers doing this, so maybe this little feature on Flickr has been overlooked?
1. In fact, in the upper right-hand corner of virtually every page on your Flickr pages are links to “Slideshow” and “Share This”.

2. Click on the “Slideshow” link, and this will take you to the Slideshow screen where you can quickly begin watching the slideshow.

3. In the upper right-hand corner of the Slideshow screen, click on the “Share” link.
4. A small window will pop-up with two options to share your slideshow.
5. “Grab the Embed HTML” by clicking in the code field, then clicking the button that says “Copy to clipboard”.
6. Simply paste the embed code into your post, and that’s all there is to it.
Wild Apricot’s Association Website Software
Tuesday, 28th April 2009
Introducing Wild Apricot’s Association Website Solution
If you belong to a particular organization, a non-profit, or social club in which members pay yearly dues, have fundraising activities and social events to benefit the club, I think association website software just could be the answer to help maintain such a group, especially on the world wide web.
Wild Apricot’s software makes it easy for users to maintain a member-focused website, “complete with powerful communication and administrative tools”.
With interactive features, the ability to automate routine administrative tasks, including inexpensive and time-efficient ways, something like association website software can help any organization or association manage their website, its administrative tasks and also benefit its members!
For one, having complete access to the organization’s online site for social interactions and more is a major benefit.
I think the whole concept is a way to combine a real-life club, association or organization, and bring a lot of those management and administrative tasks online, while also creating its own social network similar to a Facebook or Twitter, but customizable for the group’s needs.
It’s a perfect solution for member-focused organizations that need an easy-to-use website that helps you create reliable member lists and other features.
Features
Wild Apricot provides the following special features:
- Online member sign-up and renewals.
- Online payments.
- Email announcements and newsletters.
- Online registration for events.
- An online forum and blog.
Wild Apricot has a downloadable “video presentation” on their site if anyone is interested in what they have to offer.
My father was the president for a few terms in his social club, and I’m sure he will probably appreciate Wild Apricot’s association website software, and his board members and committee staff will appreciate this site too.
So, I’ll definitely have to tell them about this…
Blackberry Curve Ball Threw Me For A Loop
Tuesday, 28th April 2009
My Blackberry Keeps Turning Off
It’s been a week of frustration as my Blackberry Curve, my cell phone that was purchased almost a year ago in May of 2008, keeps shutting off when it wants to.
The latest incident was when I was in the middle of a phone convo with my Mom and the sucker just decides I don’t need to talk to my Mom right now.
Even The Garage Door Opener’s Broken
Of course, this really got me perturbed… oh it’s been a bad last 12 months for me… one freakin’ setback after another. And did I tell you all that my garage door opener is broken and I can’t afford to get it fixed? I’m doin’ it old skool, people. Manually opening and closing that sucker.
T-Mobile Store, Here I Come…
Anyways, I’m going to bring it to my local T-Mobile store and see what kind of warranty I still have on this thing. Either way, I need a working cell phone, as I’ve already shut down my “land line” and my cell phone (yes, the one that keeps deciding to turn off on it’s own) is my family’s home phone.
Sorry, Blackberry Curve, you’ve been taking way too many breaks and especially during times when I needed you most. So I’m going to have to let you go, one way or another…. hey, we’re in a recession for chrissakes…. sign o’ the times.
Cartman Would Be Pissed…
Anyway, it just goes to show ya… modern technology isn’t without it’s lame moments. No matter how great our technology is… if you don’t have a working hi-tech gadget… well, you’ve got NO technology. And none of this stuff works without battery power or access to some ‘lectricitaye!
Respect My Authoritaye!
The End of a Facebook Era…
Tuesday, 28th April 2009

I Joined Right From The Start…
I joined Facebook as soon as they opened their doors to the general public in September of 2006.
Before that, I’d been a member of several social networking sites… MySpace, Xanga, my own Rice Bowl Journals, and had been a member of countless mailing lists and discussion boards. Read more
A Saturday in Spring…
Saturday, 25th April 2009
Above: My two sons, Cameron and Jordan, at the Carlsbad Flower Fields during a family outing.
Below: My youngest son Jordan doing some dance maneuvers. Right now he has a sprained right wrist, from tripping over someone’s backpack at school. He’s currently attending an ROTC rifle team competition in Los Angeles, but because the sprained wrist he is unfortunately side-lined.
. . . .
Gigging and An Upcoming Jazz Festival
Later today, I perform with Big Daddy Orchestra at a wedding reception in Balboa Park. So glad to be gigging again.
And just found out I get to perform once again at the Smooth Jazz Festival down at the Gaslamp Quarter. We’ll be performing at Dick’s Last Resort.
. . . .
The Wendi Dee 25th Birthday Project Book
Happy Birthday to fellow raw foodie, Wendi Dee, of Pure Jeevan! Who turned “25″ today. Awesome!
Her husband Jim secretly had this birthday project circulating around the world, a special book and I received a my page in the mail for me to get creative with. I must say I am so glad to have been a part of this “labor of love”, as this is a wonderfully creative idea. Kudos to you Jim for putting this whole project together…
Wendi’s special birthday book is available online at: The Wendi Dee 25th Birthday Project Book
It’s quite amazing looking at all the pages that Wendi’s friends and family have assembled from all over the globe. Oh, here’s my page right here!
Ubuntu 9.04 Madness
Lifehacker.com features their recommendations for the Top 10 Ubuntu Downloads to enhance your Ubuntu experience.
I’ll have to check all of those out, though I tend to be “old skool” with the enhancements… a purist who is rather frugal with RAM and hard drive memory. Every time one loads new features and bells and whistles… Well, it takes up more memory!
So, I’m fine with what I set up now. I was playing around with certain programs like Picasa 3.0 for Linux and it wasn’t reading my external 1 terabyte hard drive and importing the photos there. I messed around and decided to do a “goofy” thing. I unplugged the external hard drive because it looked like nothing was happening.
A big tip for Ubuntu/Picasa users: If you want Picasa to read in photos from external hard drive and it’s not doing it, simply create a link or “desktop icon” for the folder where your photos reside. Picasa will then promptly read everything in.
Something went wrong this morning and I couldn’t get back into my computer! It’s wouldn’t boot because I just turned the PC off without properly shutting it down. Not good with a dual boot set with Linux and Windows. So, the PC got confused as to where to boot and just registered an Error 25….
I figured it out though, simply by setting up the bios (F10) to boot from the CD-ROM drive with a disk of my older Ubuntu 8.10. Then, I was able to get the menu to select Ubuntu 9.04 once again. *whew*
Everything’s running smoothly now!
Ubuntu Linux and other Random Stuff…
Friday, 24th April 2009
The above photo is a screen shot of my laptop with Ubuntu 9.04… running command line terminal, Firefox web browser with Personas, and date/calendar.
Writing For Hire vs Writing For Me
Lately, I haven’t been too prolific here when it comes to writing about my own life, or talking about raw foods or yoga or meditation… Lately, (as many of you have noticed, and are rather quiet about saying something) I’ve been writing reviews and articles for extra earnings since the job prospects in my local music scene have pretty much vanished. So, yes I’ve been writing for-pay reviews, and I think that has gotten in the way with writing about myself. And I apologize for that.
But, it’s a challenge. And I try to look at it that way. If I can successfully switch back and forth between “writing for work” and “writing for me”, then that is something to be accomplished… a goal. And I’ve been trying to focus more on the “writing for work” more so, that I may become better at it, and hopefully more successful.
So, please bear with me while I make the adjustments in my writing style.
Connecting Twitter to Facebook
A few people have asked me how to get their Twitter posts to show up on Facebook. And, instead of coming up with a good step-by-step article on the subject, there are already some good tutorials on the web. Here’s a good one!
The Switch to Ubuntu Linux 9.04
It’s always been a “hacker’s dream” of mine to have some form of Linux running on my laptop. And the latest release of Ubuntu Linux 9.04 (“Jaunty Jackalope”) came out yesterday, and I quickly downloaded and installed it in a couple of hours.
Now. The problems I’ve encountered in the past when launching a Linux OS:
- Problems with installing Linux when dual-booting with Windows (Linux would steal all of the available free space from the Windows partition).
- General problems that might have occured during the dual booting process.
- Lack of decent software that would rival Windows software. And lesser quality software (though FREE) on the Linux side.
- And for many of you who make their living by using Powerpoint, Photoshop, and the whole Office suite of Microsoft products, switching to Linux would be quite hard if you’re used to the above apps.
- Also, lack of games… Let’s face it, many of the major MMO RPG, shoot ‘em up, 3D games are all on Windows (and Mac OS X).
- Now, if you love iTunes you might want to stick to Windows or Mac OS X at this point, because iTunes doesn’t run on Linux and there isn’t a Linux version yet. But, “RhythmBox” is a very similar app that works just like iTunes, is faster and quite simple to use. And you can easily import your iTunes library.
A Look at Some Benefits of Running Ubuntu Linux
So, what’s so useful and special about Linux?
LifeHacker.com spells it out quite well as to what’s new in Ubuntu 9.04. But here are some things I truly like about Linux in general, particularly Ubuntu Linux 9.04:
- The Linux operating system is absolutely and positively FREE to download!
- With Ubuntu 9.04, downloading the ISO and burning it to a disk was painless and though it took a few hours to download, it wasn’t too bad.
- Installation was painless and quite easy.
- Partitioning Linux on a Windows machine was also painless and easy. The minimum partition to set for Linux is 4GB, but it’s easy to set whatever partition size you want for Linux and it won’t compromise or hog up memory on the Windows side. I have a 100 GB hard drive and partitioned 25 GB for Ubuntu.
- Linux is a faster, leaner and much more stable operating system. That is why most web servers use some form of Linux to serve up web pages. Of course, you may wish to just use the “desktop” version as opposed to the “server” version, unless you’re going to be running a Linux server.
- All the basic software programs can be found on Ubuntu that are equivalent to the Windows and Mac OS X versions. I am totally digging OpenOffice, the open source equivalent to Microsoft Office. And since you can NOW work with documents online at Google Docs, having Microsoft Office suite isn’t such a big deal nowadays!
- The best thing about Linux apps is that virtually all are open source and FREE!
- Dell Computers now gives you the option to have Ubuntu Linux already installed, so imagine a world in which you are FREE from Windows Vista or XP and running FREE apps that you download off the web.
- Of course, Linux is better suited for those who want to run a fast, lean and highly stable operating system that can be totally customizable and perfect for programmers and web developers.
- You can download an app called Wine to run some Windows programs and games, but I still have yet to test this myself, and I just successfully downloaded and installed Wine last night.
Anyway, I plan on adding Ubuntu Linux to my list of “categories” as I feel I’ll be writing more about it as I continue to explore the Ubuntu Linux world and let you know what I find useful and exciting about this great alternative to Windows Vista/XP and Mac OS X…..
Mutual Love
- Aigoo-Chamna
- Aiyah
- ajgazmen
- ALS Sucks!
- Cami
- Champuru
- Chi Speak
- Cindy Pon
- Cyn
- Earth-Bound Insight
- Echeng
- Fluttering Moments
- Joyceline
- Luchie
- Luckykat
- manny
- Marvin
- Media’s Memoirs
- Min Jung Kim
- Mommy Misadventures
- Pari
- raw2zen
- Rice Bowl Journals
- Sandee
- Shell
- Spitfire.cc
- Suki
- Sunfood Nutrition
- The Beauty Within
- Tokyo Rose













