Mark Spilmon's Weblog

Looking for a new Roommate

Mark A Spilmon — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:17:44 +0000

I’ve just finished modifying my screening site and added in a poll to get some idea as to why I’m not seeing results on Craig’s List. Here is the link to the web site: http://mark89121.weebly.com/

MyEarthFriendlyStore

Mark A Spilmon — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:24:49 +0000

On October 19, I began my newest endeavor towards creating owning a successful business, “MyEarthFriendlyStore.com”. I put a little thought into it, and came up with the idea that I could put together a simple hydroponics kit and sell it on eBay. I thought it was the simplest way to begin, but I’m finding through research that it is taking me longer to nail down the growing process than expected. I’ve kept the startup down, but it’s now cost me almost twice as much than what was originally expected at concept. I’ve also began looking into creating furniture kits to sell on Craig’s List. I’m currently putting in almost 5 hours a day on top of the 12 hour day taxi job. Please go to MyEarthFriendlyStore.com for progress updates.

Fractured Shoulder

Mark A Spilmon — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 18:30:43 +0000

Well I know that I’ve been negligent with my blog updates, but I wanted to update everyone about my fractured shoulder. On Oct. 3, I had gone to the nearby Sunflower Grocery Store on my scooter, but on the way back I was suddenly caught up in a very heavy rain. Within about half a block (on McLeod), I was engulfed with rain so hard that I could not see what was in front of me. When I did see, I was close enough to a stop sign (at Harmon) that I had to brake. Even though I’d slowed, I was not able to keep the scooter from siding out from under me. I was less than a block from the house. A person stopped and helped move my scooter off the road, and although I was OK enough to get up, I could not move my right arm without intense pain. I thought I had just dislocated it because of where the pain was, but after being xrayed at the Desert Spring Emergency room, I learned that the arm was fracture just below where the ball is for joint. Right where it says “Surgical Neck” on the diagram below:

I have already made one doctor’s visit to re-xray the break and it is healing well. I’m in fact making this entry using my right arm out of the sling. (They do not cast this type of break.) I should be back to work at the end of this month.

5 Foods That Can Trigger a Stroke

Mark A Spilmon — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 08:34:57 +0000

A few weeks ago, I had a hypertensive crisis where my blood pressure reached 171/110. This could have been it for me, and I determined that it was mainly due to my seditary cab job, and eating the wrong thing. I just found this article today on Yahoo. I hope that it’s helpful. 5 Foods That Can Trigger a Stroke.

Another Birthday to Ponder Upon.

Mark A Spilmon — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 23:29:25 +0000

Well, I think I’m over the mid-life crisis, but I sure wish things were different. Being a taxi driver in Vegas has taken a real toll. I have a real desire to move on, but feel stuck. I’m not really feeling up to writing this blog, but it’s something I feel I must do.

As I’ve already blogged, my father passed away in October, and this sort of event makes one consider their own mortality. He had family, and I do not. As Peter Ustinov once said “Children are the only form of immortality that we can be sure of.” Although it is something I’ve look forward to all my life, at this late date, I have little hope.

I’ve longed for many years now to find someone willing to share their life with me in a way that is meaningful. I do not think it’s possible, but I still hope. Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good.

A Creed to Live By

Author Unknown

Don’t undermine your worth by comparing
yourself with others.

It is because we are different that each
of us is special.

Don’t set your goals by what other people
deem important.

Only you know what is best for you.

Don’t take for granted the things closest
to your heart.

Cling to that as you would your life, for without
them life is meaningless.

Don’t let your life slip through your fingers by living
in the past or the future.

By living your life one day at a time, you live all the
days of your life.

Don’t give up when you still have something to give.

Nothing is really over … until the moment
you stop trying.

Don’t be afraid to admit that you are less
than perfect.

It is the fragile thread that binds us to each other.

Don’t be afraid to encounter risks,
It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.

Don’t shut love out of your life by saying it’s
impossible to find.

The quickest way to receive love is to give love.
The fastest way to lose love is to hold on too tightly,
And the best way to keep love is to give it wings.

Don’t dismiss your dreams.

To be without dreams is to be without hope.

To be without hope is to be without purpose.

Don’t run through life so fast that you forget
where you’ve been.

But also know where you’re going.

Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored
every step of the way.

Updating My Activities Since My Last Entry

Mark A Spilmon — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 11:02:08 +0000

Well, I had really hoped to be more sustainable with updating, but it turned out to be a task that I was willing to put aside. Although I enjoy making entries in this blog, it is time consuming and I find that I’m not always in the mood to write when I’ve not much to say.

Anyway, I did get connected up with a whole group of social sites and blog a little about this. I did like a few more than others like Twitter and FaceBook. I used MySpace for awhile, but I found that this was good for finding people who my live close to you that share some common interest. Twitter is very good at sharing information in a very non-intuitive way to those which follow you (it’s like saying look what I’ve done or found, without spamming them) And I think I’ve finally just realizing what a joy FaceBook really is for keeping in touch with friends and family.

My father passed away Oct 19, and I was requested by my aunt at the funeral to revive a family newsletter that I had attempt to publish almost 20 years ago.

This newsletter effort was not sustainable back then due to costs and the difficulty gathering family news. Now that I’ve had time to reflect, technology had change greatly since then, as far as social networks on the Internet and new computer tools, which could make a new effort cheaper and more sustainable.

Last month I setup 4 web sites for the family and other communication tools. Now the question of the day must be; “Why?” Each site has it’s own purpose, and they are all meant to generate discussion. By creating a gathering place for family members, they should have a better opportunity to communicate news items in their discussions. A family newsletter is not a newsletter without news. This is the primary purpose of the forum site. Any member should be able to say what is on their mind as long as it’s not harmful or offensive to the group.

Well this is a start again at updating my blog. I will try to do so more frequently from now on.

My Recient Social Networking Activites

Mark A Spilmon — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:00:38 +0000

Well, I only have a little time just now to update. I’ve been working the last few days to restart my myspace activites and have updated the profile. I have also been trying to get a better handle on on tweets and retweeting, have down loaded FeedDeamon to handle the news items a little better. I’ll try to update again tomarrow. All for now. Have fun and be safe.

Bookmarking My Web Searches.

Mark A Spilmon — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 14:16:10 +0000

I found an excellent site today to help with the news items and other research I’m doing on the Internet.

I thought I would start to build a blog on the twitter apps. that I’m currently using. Not just the link but also a little description about how I use this. So instead of tediously cataloging each one, I though it would sure be nice to bookmark a web link with some then created a blog from the bookmarks.

With a simple Google and I was at Diigo

I was able to very simply create an account using a link to my twitter account. I am exploring this application to day and hope that it will prove as useful as I expect it will.

All for today. Have fun and be safe.

Diigo (pronounced /ˈdiːɡoʊ/^[1]) is a social bookmarking website which allows signed-up users to bookmark and tag web-pages. Additionally, it allows users to highlight any part of a webpage and attach sticky notes to specific highlights or to a whole page. These annotations can be kept private, shared with a group within Diigo or a special link forwarded to someone else. The name “Diigo” is an abbreviation for “Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff”.^[2]

The launch of Diigo met with mixed responses from the unimpressed,^[3] to the enthusiastic.^[4] Diigo beta was listed as one of the top ten research tools by CNET in 2006.^[5]

Outside the website, Diigo’s graphical user interface includes an optional bookmarklet, or a customizable toolbar, with various search capabilities. Highlight is enabled by a menu, that can either appear automatically when content is selected, or be embedded into the context menu.

In March 2009, Diigo acquired web-clipping service Furl from Looksmart for an undisclosed price.^[6]^[7]

References

^ (flash) Diigo V4: Research ~ annotate, archive, organize. [Presentation]. Diigo. 2009-09-24. Event occurs at 0:00. http://vimeo.com/6747389.
^ Diigo is about Social Annotation
^ Diigo Launches, Nobody Cares
^ Diigo Offers “Social Annotation” Tool – Search Engine Watch
^ Get smart: Top 10 research tools – Internet
^ http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/09/diigo-buys-web-page-clipping-service-furl-away-from-looksmart/
^ http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/diigo_acquires_furl.php

This website-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

v • d • e

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

AddThis is a social bookmarking service founded by Dom Vonarburg and owned by Clearspring that can be integrated into a website with the use of a web widget. Once added, visitors to the website can bookmark an item using a variety of services, such as Facebook, MySpace, Google Bookmarks, and Twitter. The website is the most widely used service for bookmarking and sharing web pages^[2], used on over 5% of the top 10,000 sites on the internet^[3].

Contents [hide]

History

Work began on AddThis in March 2006. The domain name was purchased from its previous owner in the same month. The website was launched at the DEMO Conference in September 2006.^[4]

The website was purchased by Web 2.0 company Clearspring on September 30, 2008 for an undisclosed sum. Together, the companies reach an audience of more than 200 million monthly viewers.^[2]^[5] Commenting on the acquisition, Clearspring’s CEO and founder Hooman Radfar believed that it would “create a large platform of targeted content and capitalize on the next evolution in online advertising—widgets”. He also said, “Today both of our products are services to publishers and advertisers. Ultimately we want to build an ecosystem with developers of new services, applications, and advertisers, that delivers a simple experience to consumers.”^[2]

On March 5, 2007, AddThis announced that they had served over 100 million widgets to websites that use its service. The website was growing at a rate of 100% per month, and the service was registering about two million views a day.^[6]

Features

Services used by AddThis are chosen based on their popularity and visibility in search engines; there are a total of 16 services in use.^[4]

References

^ “addthis.com”. Alexa. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/Addthis.com. Retrieved 2010-02-04.
^ ^a ^b ^c Keane, Meghan (2008-09-30). “Widget-maker Clearspring Buys AddThis”. Wired. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2008/09/widget-maker-cl/. Retrieved 2010-02-04.
^ “AddThis Usage Statistics”. BuiltWith.com. http://trends.builtwith.com/widgets/AddThis.
^ ^a ^b Valentine, Mike Banks (2006-10-11). “Facilitating Social Media Optimization (SMO)”. WebProNews. http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/2006/10/11/facilitating-social-media-optimization-smo. Retrieved 2010-02-04.
^ “Clearspring acquires AddThis – Washington Business Journal:”. Washington.bizjournals.com. 2008-09-30. http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2008/09/29/daily24.html. Retrieved 2010-02-15.
^ “Article: AddThis.com Reaches 100 Million Widgets Served – Social Bookmarking.”. PRNewsWire. 2007-03-05. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-160103412.html. Retrieved 2010-02-07.

External links

Official website

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

What have I been up to since last May?

Mark A Spilmon — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 04:07:13 +0000

First to update on the Tutoring, I found that it was best to just get the girls some work books and have them check out reading materials from the library. Sitting for more than a few minutes is nearly impossible for a young child except when they are using an educational game they really like. They both are currently doing extremely well and are on the honor roll at their school.

The past couple of weeks, I been looking more closely at the social networking site Twitter, since I’m now with Cricket as my cell phone provider. There is so much that I am able to find I can do with it that I am not able to blog all in one entry. So, what I doing today is setting things up and informing everyone that I shall be blogging more. The challenge is to be sustainable. This is it for today. Have fun and be safe.

Online Tutoring Activity this Summer

Mark A Spilmon — Mon, 04 May 2009 21:09:00 +0000

This Summer I plan to tutor my two Nieces, who are entering the 2nd and 4th grades. I done the following in preparation:

Set up with a free web conferencing sites, ooVoo and SightSpeed. I then put contact buttons on the About box of this blog.

Also found a white board, Twiddle This, to assist. I also put a contact button in the About box of this blog. I also installed Yahoo messenger to allow me calls on the cheap.

I then researched on the course of study for 2nd and 4th grade. I’m current going to use the About.com info found at the following links:

http://homeschooling.about.com/cs/learning/p/course2.htm

http://homeschooling.about.com/cs/learning/p/course4.htm

After much more research, I found that the following link was very useful in finding material to use:

http://www.internet4classrooms.com/grade_level_help.htm

I’ve been formulating in my mind lesson plans for the summer, and determined this; It has to be minimal and fun, or they won’t get anything out of it. Much of this work must be done off line, and learning on their own.

It is clear that to keep them interested, I can not just assign too much boring work, but get them to participate in what they are learning through activities. I tried to find useful videos to teach every standard, but this seem to be more difficult than I expected. I went to Google and searched and searched. I also went to YouTube and still not much luck. So I’ve taken a good good look at what is out there and will be only using the ones which are must helpful.

I’ve found some of the most useful videos for learning at:

http://videos.howstuffworks.com/

again About.com was very useful with the following link:

http://websearch.about.com/od/imagesearch/a/education_video.htm

I really like the Annenberg Media videos.

Now since my Nieces are already planning big careers where a good vocabulary is very important, I plan to work on getting them to look up words with both merriam-webster.com and answers.com. I plan to send them a word of the day in email to align with the sight words they need for their grade levels. I’ve had my brother add on the merriam-webster add on for the google tool bar.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/downloads/index.htm?downloads_google

I plan to concentrate every week on current events, so their vocabulary builds faster. I will use the Time for Kids web site to assist me with this.

I also plan to use Fact Monster and Yahoo! Kids as well.

I don’t expect to spend more than an hour a day four or five times a week working on this with the girls. But I do expect so send many hours putting together the email lesson plans.

I do hope that by the end of this summer that they will have a good jump on the rest of their class mates.

Mark Spilmon's Weblog

Looking for a new Roommate

MyEarthFriendlyStore

Fractured Shoulder

5 Foods That Can Trigger a Stroke

Another Birthday to Ponder Upon.

Updating My Activities Since My Last Entry

My Recient Social Networking Activites

Bookmarking My Web Searches.

See also

References

History

Features

References

External links

What have I been up to since last May?

Online Tutoring Activity this Summer