Archive for the ‘Blogging’ Category
How I wasted my morning reading RSS feeds
If you’ve dabbled into anything web 2.0, you know a major plus for aggregating all your social and informational needs is through RSS feeds. We have one too, right here. So how many are you subscribed to, 10? 50? 100? 1000? I actually know some people that have thousands and they just sit there reading them for countless hours like I just did. Don’t.
Many people get the feeling that they “have to read everything or else miss out on something” or there are others who don’t read them for a long time and go on binges of a million posts at a time. Both ways are wrong and waste valuable time.
The idea for RSS feeds was for updates to come to you rather than you refresh at a page for updates. It became a huge convenience for people that track lots of websites but with more information, we feel more compelled to digest all that information. Once again, don’t.
Most if not all RSS readers have this magic little button called “Mark all as read”. If you are the awkward type that have never clicked on this before, what it does is magically clears all your RSS feeds to “read”. Go on, try it now, I promise it’s painless.
When I was away last week I had over 1500 updates stockpiled up and was afraid to let it all go. I thought “oh no, all that valuable information will be lost, all those tips, videos, photos, interesting tidbits… well my life will go on” and magically my RSS reader was clean.
If you still feel uncomfortable getting rid of all your unread feeds, then try a folder management system. Seen in the picture above, I categorize with:
- Daily Read
- Random Updates
- Skim
- Unimportant
~Kevin Xu
5 Tips for Campaigning
I have been at the State Leadership Conference for FBLA these last three days and one of my major “things to do” was campaigning for District Vice President! I was successful albeit I was the only one running but I learned many things that I thought I’d share.
- Don’t waste your time- This is a major one because at a 3-day event, time is of the essence. After I set up my booth at the campaigning room, I would stand by it when no one else was around. I thought this was the thing we were “supposed” to be doing or maybe someone in charge would come around and wonder where I was but both were wrong. I wasted time trying to do the right thing when I could have competed in more events and network with more people and then come to my booth during busy hours. Instead time passed under my boredom.
- Act fast, Act first- Whether it’s when you’re campaigning, talking to someone, or eyeing that cute girl you want to dance with across the room, you got to act fast and act first. There is no right time for anything but there are wrong times and that’s when you are too late. Either the opportunity will be gone or taken away and you will never know what could have came out of it if you had just toughened up to go and do it. In most cases just think about it this way, you’re going to be doing it anyways so might as well do it early and get it over with.
- Find minions- In other words, delegate your tasks. Every great boss knows this and does this well. Every unsuccessful boss has this mentality that “nobody else can do things as well as I” which leads to overworking and bombing. Learn to rely on your friends to do things when you can’t or to make your work faster. I had many friends represent me at my booth while I did other tasks which helped a lot.
- Network, network, network- You have probably heard this at every other blog you’ve read but it is still true. You meet amazing people at events or conferences and some of those people can come in very handy or lifelong friends. More connections open yourself to more opportunities so definitely take the initiative and talk to people. I’ve realized that people really don’t mind because they are looking forward to meeting new people too so taking the initiative only makes things quicker.
- Learn names- You get an awesome sense of a personal bond when you actually greet someone with their name. You come to learn someone’s name when they see it or from a peek at their nametag but learn to immediately memorize it if you feel this is a friend you will come back to. As Vice President, names are a must for me especially of board of trustee members and other important adults.
Are you keeping things too private?
In today’s growing “social” world where websites like Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, Twitter, Wikipedia, and now Friendfeed all encourage this thing called “sharing”, should we be more focused on keeping things private or encourage sharing and the collaboration of minds?
One could argue that for startups, there is the need for privacy and to not let their “sacred ideas” get out before they get a chance to make something of it. So-called as going into stealth mode, founders try to keep as much as possible on the downlow until launch and boom from there. But this would also mean not getting other people’s view on things and being very selfish over things.
Recently I took my SAT and did pretty well (2330) so came the onslaught of “Ooh whatdya get’s?” from my friends. But no matter what I got I would have told them without embarrassment. Some of my friends on the other hand, refuse to reveal their elusive score in fear of criticism or who knows what. If they did bad, I would understand not telling the score and I instantly know it from the expression on their face so its ok.
But some cases, geniuses usually, choose not to say anything after “Ooh whatdya get?” probably in fear of competition. I know how their mind works, if they reveal what they got then I would know and if its better then I would take the test again and try to do better. Or if its worse then I can wallow inside on the sense that I did better. Or maybe they just don’t want to reveal how smart they are even though everyone probably knows they got a perfect score. Wrong, wrong and wrong, keeping it to themselves is just being selfish and conceited cause they don’t want others to do better themselves. In my case, I would never express any of the aforementioned reactions cause I honestly do want all my friends to do better and go to great colleges with me.
So I say embrace the idea of sharing and collaborating, the web sure has. Using tools like wiki’s makes things easier than ever. Of course you won’t want to reveal that super master plan for success to others but the basic ideas and concept should be out on the open market. A great example is Jessica Mah using a wiki last week to collaborate ideas for a speech she was presenting. She got the opinions of many others that crafted an even better speech.
I’m willing to bet the future will hold a lot more of this idea of sharing.
~Kevin Xu
Photo courtesy of photoai
Can The World Hear. . . Us?
Not sure if any readers have noticed but the title of our blog is a slight flaw as it implies only one mastermind behind this idea and this dream. Although I am the primary writer, I want to make sure everyone knows that Josh is also intricate to the blog’s process with the backend work and constant discussions to further ideas and the future startup.
But beyond the naming problem, I realize this could lead to problems in the future over say copyright or ownership of this blog. As we go separate ways (I hope not), two roads diverge in a yellow wood, and we may never know where we may end up.
I hope when that time does come, this blog still stays alive and our memories and experience really advance us in wherever we are. I know thatsounds corny but the inevitable does happen so although the title says “Can The World Hear Me” I really want it to be “Can The World Hear Us” as I believe there are more people than just Josh and me that share this dream.
On forth!
~Kevin Xu
A whole new twist to your FriendFeed
While reading around my rss feeds, a lot of the top blogs have been mentioning a new little toy called FriendFeed. Apparently it aggregates all the top social networking sites together into the monolith of social networking all in a nice web 2.0 fashion.
I have never been the one to always follow the crowd so I had not joined yet until I read that Nate Weiner over at the Idea Shower decided to join so I knew something had to be up. I finally decided to give it a shot and I must say I am impressed.
The UI is nice and clean, the networking is strong, and overall it’s actually quite useful. It also brought to light just how many sites I signed up with which appears to be a lot. I don’t have too many friends right now but I hope to change that and this actually got me interested in twittering again.
If you add me as a friend, I’ll add you back, and let the networking begin!
FriendFeed - http://friendfeed.com/kevinx
~Kevin Xu
Always keep it simple
Uncomplicated, straightforward, austere, smooth, easy, simple.
Everyone likes it when things are simple. From web design to project assignments to blog posts. Simplicity has that rare beauty to delight the eyes and at the same time convey info.
Sadly the world is not always simple and but it is up to web designers to at least make the virtual world simpler. A favorite example of mine is Google, I mean have you seen their homepage? You go to Google to search and it lets you make a search without distraction. Easy, straight-to-the-point, simple.
Recently I received a certificate from Google for participating in the GHOP contest I mentioned earlier and I love it’s design.
Clean and simple, done
There’s absolutely no need for colorful backgrounds or random images to make it look “pretty”. It’s a certificate with my name, the contest, and a signature and I’m happy with it.
So with that in mind, we want to make “Can The World Hear Me” as simple as possible. Wordpress is the master at aggregating and automating many parts of the blog but sometimes it gets cluttered. Fortunately everything is customizable. Uncluttering the website and making the content stand out is our current goal.
And to our new readers and old readers― we have revised the point of this blog to its simplest form:
A chronicle of two boys’ journey to leave their mark on the world
~Kevin Xu
P.S. If anyone wants a really simple blog, Tumblr is the way to go. Simple design and simple posts give a whole feeling of calmness. I’m even considering creating a personal blog using Tumblr ;D
Why be extra-super-duper-ordinary?
Hi, my name is Kevin Xu, and I am solipsistic.
Solipsism is apparently the philosophical idea that “My mind is the only thing that I know exists.” When you think about it, it’s true. Only I know what I feel when I touch something. Only I know what I think and everyone else’s thoughts are synthetic. I don’t know if anyone even exists when I’m not with them. Maybe all life was just created to further my life? Yes I’m saying that none of you are real and are only here to entertain me.
Of course, all of the above is sarcastic. But solipsism can be a major ego-booster if you’re ever feeling down, try it out.
Hiatus
You know, I’m really getting the hang of making these ‘overused web 2.0-ish-y’ logos. Yeah they are really common-place and probably getting on some people’s nerves but there’s no denying that it is here to stay.
Sorry for the lack of posting again but we are re going on a hiatus for Midterm week and the SATs. Yeah, the trials and tribulations of being a student… *sigh*
In other news, has anyone figured out what our possible idea was?
~Kevin X
Ravejelly Guest Post!
Today we are presenting our very first guest post! The author is a fellow lad from Great Britain who instantly fell in love with our blog, our dream and our question, Can The World Hear Me? Part of our goal is also for the the world to hear other people too that have a strong message but don’t have a blog yet or currently no strong means to reach out to the 6 billion people out there. By having a contact in Britain, that means we are also going international 
Now without further ado, presenting “Seb Huckle, RaveJelly (Coming soon…)”
Winning a custom wordpress theme!
First I’d just like to welcome all the new readers from our last post. We got some huge spikes in traffic and I hope you all stick around. We re-thought the idea and realized that without further implications, it will remain what it is, an idea. At least for now…
On brighter news, a nice guy named Brian from plainbeta is offering a to design a free custom wordpress theme for any blog to further develop his web design skills and develop his portfolio.
So I thought I would give it a shot in his contest. In all honesty, Josh expertises in the realm of software programming rather than web design but this could provide nice experience for him as well.
So we are searching for that elegant web 2.0 style of course and already got a logo going on. So onto his questions!
Why should I pick your blog?
Simply put, our blog’s message and name is “Can The World Hear Me”, and that is what we want, the world to know who we are. So we definitely need a special theme that stands out from the rest and is nice to look at. We are only 16 so some people might not take us seriously but we definitely want that ‘professional touch’ so that people do. Our blog currently deals with our search for a startup idea that can go head-to-head with whatever is going on in Silicon Valley right now despite the fact that we are only 16. We are looking into adding other sections for “ideas” and such that add the extra flare in a otherwise normal looking blog. By picking our blog, you are helping us achieve that dream.
What do you want the design to look like?
We have some ideas going around, mostly just a conglomeration of other designs we have seen. We have been having trouble finding a color scheme that we like too so we hope we can work together with you to develop a nice working theme.
So what’s so special about it?
I’m not too sure but I am almost certain that we are two of a few teens with a dream as big as this. What happened was that we were just two friends going through the tribulations of high school with just dreams and nothing special. We finally wanted to stand out and take action and that is where this blog comes from. Objective #1 was to get noticed in the “blogosphere” and we are well on our way and a new fresh design would be awesome as well.
So with that we hope this was a good sell Brian. Hope to get in contact with you soon.
~Kevin X