Skyler Call

I am so excited about Google’s new crowdsourcing road congestion data project. If Verizon Wireless would stop blocking the GPS device in my BlackBerry 8830 I would gladly do my part and share my location data.

Feature Request: Google should now be ready to implement a new feature I have long been wishing for. When searching for directions in Google Maps you are given two check boxes allowing you to avoid highways and tolls. Where is the option for avoiding roads currently experiencing slow traffic?

Unemployed? Looking for new career opportunities? In my opinion, passing out printed resumes is an old idea. Seth Godin put it well in his March 17, 2008 blog post entitled Why bother having a resume?.

What will any HR department find when they research you online? Is there enough positive content about you to prove who you are and what you have to offer? Is there any embarrassing or degrading content about you, perhaps even written by you, that can be easily uncovered? Are you even heard of in the online world?

Create a domain for yourself online. I recently updated my website with this idea in mind. A quick visit to my home page and you will see that in a very simple manner I show you who I am and provide you easy access to the best online content about me. One improvement to my own page I hope to make soon is to replace my photo with a new vocation specific photo. I picture a photo of myself sitting in front of my clean desk and large monitors with some code I have written shown on them behind me.

Free tools at your disposal:
• WordPress – This website is built on WordPress. I use it everywhere and continue to praise that it is the best blogging tool out there.
• FriendFeed – Get online and communicate with others in your field. Share your knowledge and expertise. Participating in an online community will help you stay up to date with the latest and provide opportunities for you to learn from others. FriendFeed is the best but you can use any online community to accomplish this. Subscribe to my feed at FriendFeed.com/skylercall.
• LinkedIn – Get away from that static, boring resume and begin building a rich, dynamic resume with LinkedIn. I believe they are still too new to have a major impact today but I see great potential. Link your account to those you have worked with to begin building your pool of references. If I could make one suggestion here it would be that you not sit around waiting for volunteers to write a reference for you. Write one about them first. Hopefully they will see the effort you put into building up and improving their LinkedIn profile and will return the favor. View my LinkedIn profile at LinkedIn.com/in/skylercall.

Purchasing a domain name and web hosting
I recommend purchasing your domain name and web hosting from 1and1.com. I have used them for years and am very happy with the service they provide. Feel free to contact me if you need help setting up an account with them or installing WordPress on your newly created account.

Personal websites I have helped organize or design (updated 8/17/2009)
Feel free to use these as examples when creating your own website.
• Mark Christiansen – markwc.com

FriendFeed currently supports 58 services to share. When I first saw the list I was amazed at the large quantity of options. After using FriendFeed for a few weeks I noticed that some were sharing their Amazon Wishlist. I don’t have an Amazon Wishlist myself but got the idea to share my ThinkGeek Wishlist. After a quick visit to FriendFeed’s Services page I discovered that ThinkGeek was not a supported service. Luckily ThinkGeek gives each wishlist an RSS feed. With that RSS feed from ThinkGeek I was able to use the Custom RSS/Atom service in FriendFeed to begin importing my ThinkGeek wishlist.

What other services do you use that aren’t officially supported by FriendFeed that you are able to import with the Custom RSS/Atom option?

Subscribe to my FriendFeed account at http://friendfeed.com/skylercall.

If all goes well my family and I will be moving into a new house soon. I have really been thinking about whether or not to pay for cable television. My conclusion: What ever for? I can get almost everything I want online!

Recently my wife and I have been watching our favorite television shows on Hulu.com such as Heroes, House, The Office, and Medium. They also have a decent list of movies. More movies can be watched at Netflix.com if you subscribe to their movie-by-mail service. You can also read and watch plenty of local, national, and world news online.

I have decided that I would rather spend a little extra for a higher speed internet connection and save lots by not paying for television.

I am always surprised at how few people know what RSS Feeds are. If you currently use an RSS reader then go ahead an subscribe to my feed. If you are new to RSS then I suggest you watch Google Reader in Plain English to learn more about it and how RSS Readers like Google Reader can help. I promise it will save you tons of time and effort when trying to stay up to date with new content on the web.

My name is Skyler Call. I am a husband and a father. You can read more about my family at www.sjcallfamily.com. I work full time in the IT industry and do photography on the side. I plan to use this blog as a medium to share thoughts about my surroundings/experiences and also some of my photography.