Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: New Focus, Look and Tagline

Interaction is the ultimate goal of this site. To achieve that goal, I must draw traffic. To draw traffic, I must promote the site. Unfortunately, it's hard to promote a site when you can't state its focus and purpose in a confident, persuasive and concise manner.

Compare:

1) "I run this website-- more of a blog actually. Sort of a personal journal, things that catch my interest. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Pictures sometimes. You know?"

2) "The Jonah Chanticleer blog focuses on the constant interplay between Technology, Security and Psychology."

The first description is rambling, lacks distinction and sounds about as tedious as watching your uncle's vacation video footage (i.e. before editing). The second description is specific and informative; it says "We're both busy people. Here's what I'm about. Are you in or out?"

I've just explained the necessity for tightening this blog's focus; I've also explained that focus will be on the themes of Technology, Psychology and Security. I could explain how I arrived at those three themes, but it seems pointless. Too much information. When most folks go to a seafood restaurant and order grilled salmon, they don't want the chef to come out and describe how the fish was prepared-- they just want to enjoy the meal and the atmosphere.

The rest is obvious, I suppose. If the blog has a new focusing theme/purpose, the tagline should reflect that theme/purpose. I liked the quote from Muhammad Ali (truly a fascinating gentleman!), but using that quote for my tagline did nothing to inform people about the theme or content of my blog. The new tagline puts it all out there, even if it is in metaphor.

That brings us to the final change-- the new template. I wanted to signify this change in focus in a highly visual way. I wanted people who'd seen the blog before to do a double take and say, "Whoa! Something's different here." I dreaded giving up Jeffrey Zeldman's fantastic green "Son of Moto" template, but the new color scheme (Douglas Bowman's "Rounders 2") has a wonderful palette for this rooster logo/icon I've been contemplating for months. I think that visual cue will also psychologically reinforce my new focus and purpose as I write and post new entries.

So that's what a fortnight feels like . . .

After that short stint of blog entries about Blogger search tweaks a few weeks ago, I was hoping to take things to the next level by whipping up something in Google Mashup Editor. The idea was simple-- use Netflix's Top 25 Documentaries RSS feeds to automatically populate a list (drop-down? blogroll-style?), and when you select one of the top 25 documentaries from that list, it shows you the Blogger profiles of people who happen to have entered that documentary in their "Favorite Movies" field.

Obviously, this didn't happen. I could sit here, whine and make excuses, but-- let's just say it isn't in the cards for me to do this and move on.

There's been plenty happening on the personal front-- but the problem with personal lives is that they tend to be boring as sh*t to everyone else. For example, I doubt you want to hear about my master bathroom renovation-- the thermostatic spa system, etc. Hell, even I'm tired of hearing about it.

Yes, Virginia, I DO screen my phone calls

I have an acquaintance who calls me on my cell phone and then makes little "jab" comments about the frequency with which he/she gets my voice mail instead of me answering directly. It's rather naive-- as if they feel the act of allowing a call to go to voice mail is some scandalous thing.

So, to put the matter to rest finally-- Yes, I DO screen my phone calls.

If you call me when I'm driving, I don't answer. I'm busy driving. I'll call you back later.

If you call me when I'm in the bath room, I don't answer. I'm busy, plus it's just rude.

If you call me when I'm in a meeting at work, there's probably a very good chance you'll get my voice mail as well. My boss is sort of funny about that-- she pays me to do my work, not to take personal calls on the clock.

If you call me from a different number than what I have programmed into my phone contacts, I will probably let you go to voice mail. If I don't recognize the phone number on my display, I assume it's a telemarketer. If it isn't, I can call you back after you leave a message.

If you call me when my phone isn't getting an adequate signal, you will almost certainly get my voice mail because I won't even know you are calling. Don't worry-- when my phone regains its signal strength, I'll get a notification that someone left me a voice mail.

If I'm eating, I might or might not answer the phone. Depends where I'm eating (McDonald's or that fancy Italian place) and with whom I am eating (casual friends with their own cell phones or Victoria Secret models who expect to be the center of attention at all times).

If I'm helping a client, I probably won't answer. They don't appreciate it when you stop helping them to take a call.

If I am sleeping, I will probably answer, but don't expect me to be happy about it. Where I come from, 1 AM telephone calls are bad news-- like someone's died in a car accident, or the ambulance is taking a loved one to the emergency room. As a matter of fact, don't call me after 11 PM unless it's an emergency.

If I'm having sex . . . phhffft! LMAO! Yeah, right-- like THAT ever happens!? I might as well say "If you call me when I'm being attacked by a swarm of killer bees" or "if you call while I've burst into spontaneous combustion." Tell you what, I'll work out a rule for this contingency if it starts becoming an issue.

You get the picture, right? Yes, I do screen my phone calls. Lots of people do. It's not a question of whether I do or don't like you-- if I didn't like or respect you, I wouldn't have given you my phone number in the first place. The determining factor is the situation I happen to be in at the moment you choose to call. It was the same way back with answering machines, too. Just because the technology has become more portable, that doesn't mean the underlying etiquette has changed.

Search Blogger Profiles for people with similar (or different) movie tastes

Last week, we threw together a little web-based search form that allowed us to search for Blogger profiles by country. Although we could certainly take it a step or two further, I'd like to make a little detour this week to explore a different direction-- namely, movies.

Your Blogger profiles allows you to list your favorite movies. Much like the location field, any movie titles that you type in become hypertext links. If you click on one of those "Favorite Movie" title links, the Blogger profile search program displays other Blogger users who have entered the same movie title as one of their favorites. It's sort of cool, I guess--you can find people with similar cinematic tastes, subscribe to their blog, and then argue endlessly about whether Shane dies at the end or not.

But what happens if you want to find someone who liked a movie that you aren't willing to list in your favorites? Perhaps you fear to admit "Ernest Saves Christmas" is one of your favorite comedic movies, but secretly wish to find other people who recognize the hidden genius of Shakespearean actor, Jim Varney. Or maybe you just want to know if anyone out there would admit "Showgirls" was their favorite movie?

If so, then today is your lucky day, my friend. ;)

As always, let's start from something we know-- like the URL of a typical Blogger search with one of the movies from our own Blogger profiles:

http://www.blogger.com/profile-find.g?t=m&q=The+Princess+Bride

The basic URL (i.e. the http://www.blogger.com/profile-find.g? part) remains unchanged from our previous "search by country" example. The value of the first parameter after the question mark changed from an "l" (for location) to an "m" (for movie). But, the second parameter (that is, "q=") and the value for that second parameter ("The+Princess+Bride") are completely different. The "q" stands for query, if that will help you remember it-- and the text after the equal sign is obviously the title of a movie, but with plusses instead of spaces between words. It's a trick to keep the URL from having spaces in it, which could cause problems with links as well as passing the data to the search program.

Rather than build another web-based search form from scratch, let's try just modifying the form we created last time. Here it is:

<form action="http://www.blogger.com/profile-find.g" method="get">
<input name="t" value="l" type="hidden">
<select name="loc0" id="loc0" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<option value="_nil_">Select a country</option>
<option value="AF">Afghanistan</option>
. . . not all countries are listed, obviously . . .
<option value="ZM">Zambia</option>
<option value="ZW">Zimbabwe</option></select>
<input value="Submit" type="submit">
</form>

I've italicized the lines that are specific to the country search, which we will remove. This leaves us with the following:

<form action="http://www.blogger.com/profile-find.g" method="get">
<input name="t" value="l" type="hidden">

. . . we've removed the drop down list, and will replace it with a text field . . .

<input value="Submit" type="submit">
</form>

That second line is a hidden field we use to pass the type of query (i.e. location, movie, etc.) to the Blogger Profile Search Program. It's currently set to a value of "l" (as in, location) which won't do us much good. To make it search for movies instead, we just change the value to "m" instead. That leaves us with:

<form action="http://www.blogger.com/profile-find.g" method="get">
<input name="t" value="m" type="hidden">

. . . we've removed the drop down list, and will replace it with a text field . . .

<input value="Submit" type="submit">
</form>

Almost done. The last thing we need to do is put in a text field so people can type in the name of any movie title. As always, I leave the specific text and styling decisions to your preferences:

<form action="http://www.blogger.com/profile-find.g" method="get">
<input name="t" value="m" type="hidden">
<p><input name="q" id="q" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;" />
</p>
<input value="Submit" type="submit">
</form>

Go on, give it a test drive and see for yourself. I know, some of you might be wondering about how we're going to get the plus signs in between the words of movie titles. Is it a trick with Javascript? Actually, the good news is that the web browser takes care of that little detail in the background for us when the user hits the Submit button. (editorial note: I haven't tested this with every single browser out there in the wild, but it works with Firefox 2.0 on the Macintosh definitely, and I expect this trick will work with most modern browsers.)

Blogger Profiles Search: Movies!

Enter any movie title:

Cellular News story - truth or bad pun?

There's a story over at Cellular News that is setting off my bullshit detector. I want to know if anyone else has the same reaction to it.

The premise of the news item itself isn't especially preposterous-- prisoners in Pakistan smuggle/hide cell phones, in some cases by using their body cavities to do so. Prison authorities decided to do a sweep for and found smuggled phones, and in seven cases medical help was required in order to remove the phones.

So far, perfectly fine. It's the sentence where the news item cites their story source that set me off:

"Camp Jail Superintendent Gulzar Ahmad Butt said that the mobile phones had been found during a physical search of the prisoners and when they were screened with metal detectors." (emphasis mine)

The main story (i.e. prisoners who hid cell phones up their rectums needed medical attention) of the news item has one source, and his last name just happens to be "Butt?" Is this a news story, or someone's idea of a practical joke?