There are two reasons I’m interested in testing it. First, I like the potential to embed into a blog post, which would allow us to put the video in front of our most frequent readers. Second, the type-as-you-go makes it interesting to test for use in a help topics setting. I’m not sure if either of these benefits outweigh the use of Visible Gains or YouTube, but it’s always worth a test.

Pardon the static screen, I haven’t uploaded a profile video yet but I’d love to get some content posted so please ask away (everything is fair game) –

Generally I feel that “Twitter analysis” is a bit of an oxymoron – it’s missing the qualitative benefits of the social connections that are made offline and/or long term.  I am, however, interested in sharing content that my core audience will find interesting.  Short of polling 1,600 people, the easiest way to do that is to look at the numbers and here are a few concepts I’m thinking about for improving my feed.

I’ll do this <sarcasm>earth-shattering </sarcasm> analysis  in segments as I have ideas or suggestions and time allows.  Here’s the first pass…

I do “at” mentions far too often.  Formulists pulled a list for me of the top 50 people who have @replied to me in the past year and includes the number of times I have mentioned them.  The numbers were wildly differential.  Here are a few quick stats;

• The total times I mentioned people was 382 v. was mentioned 720 (53%)
• Person who mentioned me most: @JimStorer with 42 mentions.
• Runner up: @m750 with 40 mentions.
• Person I mentioned the most: @JimStorer with 97 mentions.
• Runner up: @m750 with 56 mentions
• The best ratio was @shakti672, who replied 200% of the time.
• The worst was @Devon, who replied 14% of the time.

I, seemingly, have used Twitter as a conversational tool far more often than other people.  Another option is that I simply haven’t been active enough to warrant others mentioning me – either in online or offline methods, or I may just be sharing too much noise / junk / unoriginal content… Or I’m just yelling at clouds.

My takeaway is that people seemingly care less about social mentions and more about the content delivered, so I’ll make a conscious effort to decrease the conversational mentions.  My secondary takeaway is that I need to hang out with Jim & Aaron more offline.

10/13 Update – I’m having doubts in the integrity of the data pulled from Formulists, namely since @PeteKuhn is excluded from the list.  Pete is a close friend and after I grew suspicious that he wasn’t completely excluded from the Formulists data I manually went through his feed and counted at least 10 instances of mentions where we’ve had conversations via Twitter – enough to put him in the top 10, let alone top 50.  This erodes a lot of my confidence in the initial data but I still think it is, directionally, correct.  I don’t have any reason to believe Formulists is favoring inbound mentions over outbound mentions, or vice-versa.  …yet, anyway.

Near this Spot
are deposited the Remains of one
who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferosity,
and all the virtues of Man without his Vices.

This praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
if inscribed over human Ashes,
is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a DOG,
who was born in Newfoundland May 1803
and died at Newstead Nov. 18, 1808.

When some proud Son of Man returns to Earth,
Unknown by Glory, but upheld by Birth,
The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe,
And storied urns record who rests below.
When all is done, upon the Tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what he should have been.
But the poor Dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his Master’s own,
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonoured falls, unnoticed all his worth,
Denied in heaven the Soul he held on earth –
While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.

Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power –
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy tongue hypocrisy, thy heart deceit!
By nature vile, ennobled but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Ye, who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on – it honors none you wish to mourn.
To mark a friend’s remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one – and here he lies.

Being the same size as the author (6′-3″ and 230 lb’s) the “you’re too big to run” sentiments really hit home.  I’m not sure if the book will motivate me to run more but it certainly is already motivating me to give more consideration to how I run.

The video below summarizes it better than I can but to over-paraphrase, the common notion that running, as an activity, is bad for humans is complete hogwash.  If you’re getting hurt, you’re doing something wrong, but it isn’t the activity itself.

If you’re into participating in outdoor sports (not necessarily even running in particular) I would highly recommend the book.  It’s written in a nice, light manner for a quick read that will make you miss running – even if you’re 6′-3″ and 230+ lbs.

Watch it on TED.com.

Follow Chris on Twitter: @BornToRunChris.

Link: Estimating Firewood from Standing Trees

(Interesting that a single tree 22″ in width can produce a cord)

Picture from Washington Post.

8/29 Update: I found another great resource from the University of Nebraska‘s aggricultural department.  It doesn’t include the same level of detail as UNH but has quick summaries on species characteristics including green/dry weights, BTUs, and other characteristics.  It also includes safety tips  and a cost-comparison of firewood against other fuels such as oil, propane, and natural gas. Link:  Heating With Wood: Producing, Harvesting and Processing Firewood

“Family members followed Tumilson’s ribbon-winning Labrador retriever, Hawkeye, into the service. Hawkeye later accompanied his new owner, Nichols, Tumilson’s close friend, to the stage, where the Lab dutifully dropped to the floor to listen.”  From here.

I’m speech-less.

We’re just about halfway through the year but I’m calling it now: 2011 is the year of the hacker. Grim?  Maybe.  Just about every week there has been a new story about a company being hacked and it’s costing companies millions of dollars and even more for their brand reputation.

While only two of these hacks really impacted a company I use heavily, I thought I’d do a quick countdown on the top hacks of 2011 and the associated costs.

7) DropBox
The file-sharing site opened the doors for four hours this week, allowing anyone with a login to access other accounts.  It turns out that it was a self-inflicted wound and DropBox broke their own authentication system.  While the finacial impact probably won’t be released, just browse through the 600+ customer comments to see how the issue and their response impacted their brand.  It’s a bug, not a hack, but certainly something that could have been avoidable with ample testing prior to a full launch.

Responsible: Themselves.

Cost: A self reported “much less than 1%” of their more than 25 million users were impacted to an undisclosed extent.

6) MovableType / PBS.org
In a pure retaliation a group of hackers targeted PBS.org in response to an episode of Frontline’s portrayal of of WikiLeaks leaker Bradley Manning.  The hackers gained control of PBS.org and republished false information.  PBS was not able to immediately regain control and was forced to utilize their Facebook page as their primary news source.

Responsible: LulzSec.

Cost: One of their Sr. Correspondents, Judy Woodruff, wrote a post on “Calculating the Cost of an Attempt to Silence the Press”.  While they didn’t disclose any financial costs or specific user information loss, it has certainly been a struggle for them to regain control of their site and all of their content.

5) WordPress.org Pluggins

This malicious hack just happened yesterday.  Turns out a few of the code-development site’s pluggins were hacked and granted 3rd party access to sites using those pluggins.  Specifically, the popular pluggins AddThis, Wptouch, and W3 Total Cache.  So far it sounds like they’ve done a good job closing the door but it was open for a solid 24 hours.

Their advice; “any users of the three Trojanized plug-ins who updated them “in the past day” (meaning Monday or Tuesday) should upgrade those plug-ins immediately.”

They also remind us that the goal of many of these backdoor Trojan hacks is to gain password access for use on other sites, in the hope that users won’t be savvy enough to have site-specific or multiple passwords.

The InformationWeek.com article shares some other interesting information.  “Plug-ins, malicious or otherwise, continue to account for an increasing number of vulnerabilities seen in applications, both on PCs (for example, with browsers) and in Web applications (such as WordPress). In terms of WordPress, plug-ins now account for 80% of all WordPress-related vulnerabilities, according to HP DVLabs”

Responsible: Unknown.

Cost: Not yet known, although according to InformationWeek.com “AddThis and W3 Total Cache have been downloaded at least 500,000 times, and the free version of WPtouch, more than two million times”.  It’s unclear how many of those users updated the pluggins with the Trojan.

4) Sega
Sega’s account management system, “Sega Pass” was hacked after Sega West’s CEO made a couple confident comments in regard to their security system in wake of Sony’s hacks (see below for more on Sony).  In an interesting turn, the hacker group LulzSec offered to help find the perpetrators. with the added comment, “we love the Dreamcast”.

In case we needed another reminder to have multiple passwords, “[Sega] also cautioned that ‘if you use the same login information for other websites and/or services as you do for Sega Pass, you should change that information immediately.’”

Responsible: Unknown.

Cost: Sega lost key user information for 1.3 million customers including email addresses, date of birth, and encrypted passwords.

3) Citigroup
Citi lost some important data in this one – customer names, email addresses, contact information, and even account numbers.  While customers can’t rest assured that their accounts are safe Citi did add that, “customer’s social security number, date of birth, card expiration date, and card security code (CVV) were not compromised.” and that customers should remain on “high alert for scams, phishing, and phone calls purporting to be from Citibank and their subsidiaries.”

Responsible:LulzSec

Cost: A self-reported 1% of their 21 million customers (or 210,000 accounts) had their personal information stolen. There has been no mention of financial costs incurred.

2) Web Sever/Sites of the U.S. Senate, CIA, and FBI

There have been a few government sites and subsidiaries hit this year, including InfraGard, “a private, non-profit organization that exists to serve as a public/private partnership with the FBI”, the CIA and FBI’s Detroit office and the US Senate among others.

Antivirus vendor Sophos had a great contribution;

“While some people think this is a fun game that can also help point out corporate security weaknesses, the truth is that companies and innocent customers are–in the worst cases–having their personal data exposed,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, in a blog post. “There are responsible ways to inform a business that its website is insecure, or that it has not properly protected its data. What’s disturbing is that so many Internet users appear to support LulzSec.”

InformationTech has a more inclusive list of the government branches that have been attacked, mainly with DDoS attacks.

Responsible: LulzSec

Cost: InfraGard lost member data and all information stored on their website. The CIA’s pblic website was taken and the FBI’s Detroit office received a distributed denial of services attack to their phone system.  The U.S. Senate web server was attacked.

1) Sony / Sony Pictures / Playstation
Has anyone not yet heard about Sony’s 2011?  In case you haven’t, Google has over 2,000 recent articles on the issue.  The #1 biggest hack is probably not a list anyone would want to be on but here they are.

I’ve been a die-hard Playstation fan since PS1 first came out (the PS3 is an impressive machine and the ergonomics of the Xbox controller is horrible compared to the PS controller) but I’ve found myself thinking about switching to the Dark Side.  (I’ll spare you all from a rank on Sony’s lacking embrace of social media and off-console technology.)

At this point Sony is facing attacks from consumers, court systems, and just about every other nightmare you can imagine.  In just one example, Infinity Ward, one of the two publishers of the mulit-billion dollar Call of Duty series, made the lazy mistake of leaving security in the hands of the respective servers. When Sony was hacked it rendered their Modern Warfare 2 game “unplayable”.

Responsible: LulzSec

Cost: In April they were forecasting a cost of $170 million.  By the end of April that number was up to $1.5 billion.  By the end of May there are reports that the hacking (and their response) will cost them $24 billion dollars – nearly 10x their revenue for the same period.  [Infographic at bottom of the post]

Quite the list.  Here’s to hoping 2012 is the year of security improvements…

The Minute Man (Concord, MA.)

I  admit it; I don’t know as much about the American Revolutionary War as I feel I should, especially for a resident of Concord, MA – arguably the birthplace of the American Revolution.  (My wife, born in Philadelphia where the Declaration of Independence was signed 442 days later, always finds a way to debate this.)

Patriots Day is around the corner (Monday, April 18^th) and has long been one of my favorite holidays for several reasons.  Seasonally, it’s been a turning point for nice weather.  Athletically, it’s “Marathon Monday”, or home to the famous Boston Marathon.  Historically, and most importantly, it’s the milestone for our countries independence from England some 236 years ago.  This last point has grown increasingly important to me over the years as I’ve begun to appreciate the magnitude and significance of April 19, 1775.

In the early morning of April 19, 1775, the British Army marched from Boston toward Concord to seize military supplies. Determined to protect their freedoms in the wake of British taxation without representation the Massachusetts militia was waiting in Lexington center to intercept the British Army.  Their 80 militiamen, however, were no match for the 700 prepared British.  It is unclear who fired the first shot but the quick skirmish left one British soldier wounded with 10 colonists wounded and 8 killed.

By the time the British had arrived in Concord the situation had changed drastically.  While the British had spread themselves through Concord in their hunt for arms the Minutemen and militiamen from Acton, Concord, Bedford, and Lincoln had grouped near the Old North Bridge.  The Battle of the Old North Bridge included roughly 400 militiamen to the British Army’s 90-95 soldiers.  What triggered the battle by an unknown shooter would later be dubbed as “the shot heard around the world” by Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Both sides suffered casualties and fatalities but ultimately the British were forced to retreat back to Boston during which they continued to take fire and suffer fatalities from pursuing militiamen.

Self-portrait from old friend, Dave W. serving in his F-18. Pictured here with Flat Stanley.

Following the Battles of Lexington and Concord thousands of militiamen from around New England continued to flood toward Boston.  The Siege of Boston, led by George Washington, lasted from April 19^, 1775 until March 17, 1776 when the 120 British ships sailed out of Boston Harbor.  It would be seven more years before the American Revolution would end but on July 4, 1776 the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence stating that the 13 American colonies were now independent states.  Two hundred and thirty six years sounds like an unfathomable time period but the towns of Lexington and Concord do a great job of keeping the spirit of the day alive.

Today Patriots Day is a civic holiday to commemorate the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington & Concord and to remember those who lost their life fighting for our county’s independence.  It is celebrated with reenactments’, parades, and even a retracing of Paul Revere’s famous ride from Boston.

I also use it as a day to appreciate those who continue to take arms to protect this country.  They’re putting themselves in harm’s way so many of us don’t have to and for that, my family says thank you.

Want to learn more?

• John Adams is an entertaining and fantastic miniseries on DVD (& Blu-ray)
• The Minute Man National Historic Park is the hub of information for the topic.
• Full list of Patriots’ Day Events on NPS.gov
• Dedicated to the event: BattleRoad.org
• Check out Concord, MA’s homepage for information on events. [Patriots Day Parade is Monday, April 18^th from 9am to noon. Muster at Armory on Stow St.]
• Concord Journal Article on 2010 Patriots’ Day Parade

The idea was a whim and I had no expectations for what it would be able to accomplish and I’m proud to say we received 53 tweets and we raised almost $500 with just the single blog post and communications on Twitter.  While I’m disappointed that @AKCDogLovers didn’t retweet our topic (it’s for their fund, after all) I am pretty impressed with the speed at which people rallied and offered support – often without asking.

A huge thanks to those who helped by offering their financial support – Pete Kuhn, Karen Kuhn, Chris Garby, Michelle Heaney, Robert Solar, Kristen Kramer, Alexis Kuhn, Kim Kuhn, Perry Hewitt, Devon Biondi, and Roy Solomon.  Their help was crucial and very much appreciated.

And, of course, thanks to everyone who took a moment to share our goal by Tweeting the page to their followers.

If you are interested in making contributions to the AKC’s Canine Support & Relief Fund please visit their homepage directly here: https://www.akccar.org/donate/index.cfm?fund_type=KHRFUND

If you do choose to make a financial contribution please email me or comment below so I may add you to our team list.

Thanks again,
Matt & Cooper

Here are the answers;

1. Optimize for speed – Cutts states that there is an SEO benefit to speed but it’s also worth noting that users will do more actions on your site.
2. Don’t assume you have buy in from C-Level in your company.  (“Make sure you have control of your CMS”)
3. Think about social media marketing (Cutts uses the examples of Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Reddit, & StumbleUpon)

To point number one, Google has just launched a tool for page speed analysis, appropriately called Page Speed.  It’s still in Google Labs but having played with it for a bit it seems pretty well flushed out.  Mashable has written a description of the tool but it’s pretty straight forward and Google does a nice job of presenting the actionable items once run.  I highly recommend checking it out.

A side note I’ve wanted to reference for a while is the use of keywords in meta data.  Google has stated that they use keyword meta tags in their search results, “basically not at all” according to Matt Cutts (video below).  Cutts followed it up by adding, “we don’t use the keywords meta tag in our search rankings… even the least little bit”.  He did add the caveat, “other search engines might, but Google doesn’t”.