Tag Archives: humor

Polishing the Apple iPhone

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Is the iPhone the answer to every problem?

From “NPR: Polishing the Apple iPhone” on The Unger Report:

Steve Jobs of Apple is known for his ability to imagine a product that has all the bells and whistles the market loves. Humorist Brian Unger imagines some features for the new Apple iPhone that Jobs overlooked.

A podcast episode that’ll make you smile.

5 Ways to Make Your Blog Posts More Readable

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Learn five easy tricks to help pull readers into your blog posts.

Okay, so you’ve written an article for your blog and you’re all ready to publish it online. You’re confident that the article’s content is well-written. And you’re sure it will appeal to your blog’s regular readers.

But wait! Before you put it out to be read by the world, have you done what you can to make it more readable?

By readable, I mean formatted in such a way that visitors will be drawn into its content and want to read every word. Or have you simply composed 20 paragraphs of good, solid information, formatted as big solid blocks of text?

No matter what blogging tool you use to publish your blog, you should have access to the standard array of formatting features available in HTML. In this article, I’ll explain how and why you should use them.

Break Up Long Paragraphs

What’s less attractive on a Web page than solid blocks of text? Long paragraphs of unbroken text can intimidate readers. They look unapproachable, like a college textbook. (For me, they bring to mind the textbook in my college tax accounting course, which further reminds me of two semesters of boring hell on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.)

Break up long paragraphs at logical points. This will require some writing skill, since you can’t arbitrarily chop paragraphs up — each one must still communicate a complete thought. But shorter paragraphs are a lot less intimidating than long ones — a point that applies to sentences, too (although I can’t seem to get that one into my thick skull).

And one more thing about this: be sure to use a space between paragraphs (usually with the

tag rather than the
tag, if hand coding is required). On the Web, that’s the standard way to end one paragraph and begin another. Just starting a new line isn’t going to break the paragraph at all — at least not in the eyes of the reader.

Use Headings

Headings cue the reader about the content of paragraphs that follow them. For example, my Use Headings heading here tells you that I’m going to talk about headings in this paragraph and, likely the few that follow up until the next heading. Readers can scan your article’s headings to get a better idea of what the article covers.

Of course, there are two kinds of headings. There’s the kind that actually reflects what’s in the paragraphs they head — that’s what I’m using in this article. And then there’s the kind that doesn’t quite explain what the following paragraphs are about, but are humorous or witty. Both types can work, but for serious content, I recommend the first type.

Headings can also help with search engine optimization (SEO), but not being an SEO expert, I can’t elaborate much about this. I seem to recall reading that h1 and h2 level headings are more effective for SEO than other lower levels. I use h3 because that’s how formatting is set up on my blog and I’m not terribly concerned with SEO. If SEO is very important to you, you might want to look into this claim. Of course, for headings to be effective at all in SEO, they must be coded as headings using

and tags (or other level tags as appropriate) around them. The appearance of text coded as headings will vary depending on settings in your style.css file or other style information for your blog. (And now we’re getting a little more technical than I wanted to get in this article.)

Format Lists as Lists

If any paragraph in your article includes a list of four or more items that are longer than four or more words each, for heaven’s sake, format them as a list!

There’s nothing so boring or potentially confusing as long lists within a paragraph, especially when those lists include explanations, commas, and semicolons. Why worry about proper in-paragraph list formatting when you can simply create a bulleted or numbered list that’s clear and easy to read?

Lists, like headings, are also extremely scannable, making it easy for readers to get an idea of the content they include. They draw the reader in by giving them information in bite-sized chunks. Bold formatting used at the beginning of a list item (see below) can act as a heading, letting the reader know that an explanation or more information about the item follows.

In summary, lists can do the following for you:

  • Break up long blocks of text. Long lists in a paragraph make big, fat, intimidating blocks of text. Isn’t this much nicer?
  • Make one point easy to distinguish from the next. Since you (and your readers) don’t have to worry about how list items are separated (comma or semi-colon?) you don’t have to worry about someone misunderstanding list items.
  • Take advantage of built-in formatting options. I’m not just talking about standard bullets and hanging indents here. As you can see in this list, a blog’s style.css file can include instructions for graphic bullets or other fancy formatting.
  • Give your readers important points quickly. By presenting information in an easily scannable format, your readers can see what a list is about without wasting time. If it’s what they want to learn more about, they’ll dive in and read it.

Apply Other Formatting…but Sparingly!

There are other, more basic formatting features you can apply to text. Want some basic information to stand out? Use bold formatting (as I did in the bulleted list above). Introducing a new word or phrase? Italicize it. Got a quote to share? Here’s what I say:

If it’s longer than a dozen or so words, consider putting quotations between

and

tags. This clearly identifies the text as a quote from another author. (Well, in this case, it’s still words of wisdom from me, but you can quote me if you like.)

Don’t use ALL CAPS. It’s childish and unprofessional and considered by many to be “shouting.” And don’t use underlines. On the Web, underlines indicate hyperlinks and you can confuse your readers.

And don’t use too much formatting. There comes a point when the repeated application of bold and/or italic formatting loses meaning and simply fails to do the intended job.

Insert Illustrations

I’m a firm believer in the old adage: “One picture is worth a thousand words.” Maybe that’s why I’ve been writing Visual QuickStart Guides for Peachpit Press since 1995. Those books are full of screenshots — mine average 3-4 per page — and are excellent tools for teaching readers how to perform tasks with various software.

In regular writing — such as the writing you might do for your blog — images can also help communicate information. Did you write a software how-to piece? Screenshots of the steps would be extremely helpful. Did you write about a recent vacation? Include a few photos to show the scenes you’ve written about. Does your article explain the organization of a company or one of its departments? Include an organizational chart to put things in perspective.

On the Web, images do more than just communicate information. They also add visual appeal. Think about it as you visit sites on the Web. Which pages or blog posts caught your attention more? The ones without images? Or the ones with photos or drawings?

If you don’t have illustrations for your article and you want to include some other kind of graphic element, try text in a box. This effect, which is often used in print publications, can add visual appeal almost as much as an image can.

Let’s face it: people like to look at pictures. By giving them pictures that relate to your article, you can capture their attention and reel them in to read more about what the picture shows.

A word of warning here: Don’t use photos that don’t belong to you — doing so is likely a violation of copyright law. You can probably use company logos — if your use is consistent with the company’s rules governing logo use (normally available on its Web site) and you’re writing about the company. But taking photos off another Web site or scanning them out of a print publication for use on your site could get you in a lot of trouble. It’s stealing, plain and simple, and you could get sued. Use photos, screenshots, and drawings that you’ve taken or that you’ve received permission to use. The rule of thumb here is, if you don’t know whether you have permission to use it, you probably don’t.

Conclusion

As you can see, each of these techniques is relatively easy to implement on your blog. While it isn’t necessary to use all of them in one article (as I’ve attempted to do here), you can mix and match them as you see fit to liven up the layout and appearance of your prose.

The main thing to remember is this: the more interesting you make your text appear at first glance, the more likely you are to get readers to stick around and read what you’ve written.

Oh, and by the way, just about everything in this article also applies to your non-Web writing efforts: reports, articles, white papers, and books. You just won’t need HTML code to get the job done.

Cynical Humor

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From my friend, Tom.

I got these from Tom a while back. Not sure where he got them from, but I think they’ve been around a while because some of them are a bit familiar. In any case, I thought they’d be nice to share online.

PC Warning! Some of these are slightly politically incorrect. If you’re easily offended, stop reading now.

  • Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.
  • One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.
  • Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
  • If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes?
  • The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.
  • I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, “Where’s the self-help section?” She said if she told me it would defeat the purpose.
  • What if there were no hypothetical questions?
  • If a deaf person swears, does his mother wash his hands with soap?
  • If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation?
  • Is there another word for synonym?
  • Where do forest rangers go to “get away from it all”?
  • What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?
  • If a parsley farmer is sued, can they garnish his wages?
  • Would a fly without wings be called a walk?
  • Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them?
  • If a turtle doesn’t have a shell, is he homeless or naked?
  • Can vegetarians eat animal crackers?
  • If the police arrest a mime, do they tell him he has the right to start speaking?
  • Why do they put Braille on the drive-through bank machines?
  • How do they get deer to cross the road only at those yellow road signs?
  • What was the best thing before sliced bread?
  • One nice thing about egotists: they don’t talk about other people.
  • Does the Little Mermaid wear an algebra?
  • Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?
  • How is it possible to have a civil war?
  • If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest drown, too?
  • If you ate both pasta and antipasto, would you still be hungry?
  • If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?
  • Whose cruel idea was it for the word “Lisp” to have “S” in it?
  • Why are hemorrhoids called “hemorrhoids” instead of “assteroids”?
  • Why is it called tourist season if we can’t shoot at them?
  • Why is there an expiration date on sour cream?
  • If you spin an oriental man in a circle three times does he become disoriented?

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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An interesting — if not extremely weird — read.

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyI’d read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy some time ago and probably even read a few of its sequels. But when The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was released, I added it to my Amazon.com wish list. Within two weeks, I had it in my hot little hands.

Douglas Adams has a great sense of humor and a wonderful way with words. There’s a joke in every paragraph, if not every line, of the book. The story is a mish-mash of science fiction/time-travel adventures that are beyond far-fetched. The result: a fun read that’ll entertain, enlighten, and confuse you.

Podcast Stuff

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Maria Speaks Episode 31: Podcast Stuff.

This episode marks my return to Maria Speaks after a two-month break. It covers my change in podcasting technique, a new video podcast I just created for Flying M Air, and the podcasts I subscribe to.

Transcript:

Hi, I’m Maria Langer. Welcome to Episode 31 of Maria Speaks: Podcast Stuff.

I just spent the past three hours redoing the Maria Speaks podcast. I used to publish it with Blogger and FeedBurner. Now, since my personal Web site is blog-based using WordPress, I cut Blogger out of the picture. It took me three hours to create or modify blog entries to embed my thirty existing podcast entries on this site. Well, twenty-nine. One of them covered an eBook I no longer distribute, so it didn’t link to it.

I developed this new method of podcasting — new to me, I should say — to reduce the amount of work required to publish a podcast and keep all podcast information together. I used to use a WordPress plugin called podPress, but I removed all references to it and disabled it today. Keep it simple — that’s what I decided. And the technique I worked out is relatively simple, utilizing an existing WordPress blog and FeedBurner. I wrote about it in an article to be published soon by Informit.com. When it comes out, I’ll link to it on the Aritcles page of my Web site and create a podcast based on its content.

For some reason, my “Maria Speaks” podcast has more subscribers than ever. That makes me wonder, since I haven’t released a podcast episode since September, and that episode was a bit more commercial than I like. This time last year, I was releasing one or two episodes per week. I ran out of steam last December and have been releasing them far less frequently. Still, my subscriber numbers have been climbing steadily. It doesn’t make sense to me, but it did convince me to release more content. The way I see it, when all these new subscribers start getting the new content, they’ll either like it and stick around or not like it and leave.

In the meantime, I started a new video podcast in October for my helicopter charter company, Flying M Air. I have literally thousands of photographs taken throughout the southwest, in places I fly to. I also have photos taken by my husband and by professional photographer and Bigfoot Hunter, Richard Noll.

Rick accompanied me on a test run of Flying M Air’s Southwest Circle Helicopter Adventure. The deal we struck was that in return for all all-expense paid trip, he’d let me share copyright on all the video and still images he took. While he has the ability to sell these images as stock photos or use them in other projects, I have the ability to use them in marketing material to help sell the excursions and in articles I plan to write for publication about the trip. It was a win-win deal. Richard took lots of pictures from the air, which is something I simply can’t do while I’m flying. He also took video images with something a few clicks better than the little Canon digital video cameras I have. I’m still going through the over 1,000 still images and 3 to 4 hours of video he left on my MacBook Pro’s hard disk before departing back to the Seattle area.

I decided to turn my library of photos into video brochures for Flying M Air’s tours, charters, and excursions. The result is “Come Fly With Us!” (subscribe), which currently has three episodes. Another episode will be released Monday. (That’s one of the good things about my new podcast publishing technique; I can schedule a publication date and time. This makes it possible to record several podcast episodes at once and release them periodically over time.)

Part of the learning experience for creating this new podcast was finding legal music to play while the images were showing. I wasted a lot of time looking. Some sites promoting “royalty-free” music for podcasts required that you buy the songs to use them. That wouldn’t have been so bad if the songs were sold at iTunes prices or even a few bucks, but they were asking for $25 or $39 dollars per song. I use each song on just one video podcast episode and plan to release new titles once a week until I run out of material. That music was simply over my budget.

The much hyped GarageBand.com promised royalty-free, free downloads music. But the vast majority of artists didn’t allow free downloads of their songs. And since I was looking for relatively mellow instrumentals — you know, mood music — I had trouble finding what I wanted there in the first place.

I finally wound up on MagnaTune.com. I heard about it during an interview with the site’s founder, John Buckman, that Miraz had referred me to. MagnaTune predates iTunes by about two weeks. Although it has a limited number of artists on board, it offers very reasonable licensing of its music for podcast use. I’ve been getting tunes for my “Come Fly with Us!” podcasts from MagnaTunes since then and giving credit to the artists at the end of each video. I hope they sell some music.

Speaking of music, if you’ve been listening to Maria Speaks for a while now, you may have noticed that I changed the “theme song” for this podcast. The reason: I had a one-year licensing agreement with FreePlay Music for the old tune, Floater. Last year, when I bought that license, it cost $25/year, which I thought was reasonable. When I went to renew, the price had gone up to $100/year. I guess they decided to cash in when podcasting took off. That’s above my budget for a free podcast that doesn’t even earn any advertising revenue, so I decided to find a new tune. The new tune is is a segment from a nameless bit that I got off a public domain music CD I acquired back in 1996. I spent about an hour yesterday going through the one thousand plus songs on that CD set to pick this one. I’m not sure how much I really like it, but I do need something for my opening and closing credits.

The main topic of this podcast episode was supposed to be a quick discussion of some of the podcasts I listen to regularly. So let me dive into that for a few minutes.

I want to start off by telling you what I don’t listen to. I don’t like podcasts that mix discussion and “Garage Band” music. For example, I used to listen to a podcast about words hosted by two guys who seemed to guess more about word origins than actually research them. They’d pick few words or phrases and do a 40-minute podcast about them. The way they’d stretch out that podcast is by inserting a few Garage Band songs into it. Trouble was, their taste in music was nothing like mine, so I found myself having to fast forward through the music filler to get to the discussion meat. Fast forwarding is not always easy when you’re listening on an iPod and driving in traffic. When I realized that the content I was interested in wasn’t that good to begin with, I dropped the podcast. Ditto for the writing podcast some woman was doing. I wasn’t listening to hear music. I was listening to hear content. If the content was music related, the music would make sense. But it wasn’t and it didn’t.

In general, I don’t listen to music podcasts at all. Finding new music is low on my priority list. So if you you think you might find some tips for new and exciting music podcasts here, you will be disappointed.

What I do like listening to is podcasts that can enlighten me, teach me new things, or make me laugh with intelligent humor. I listen to podcasts primarily when I’m driving or flying, although I do have a i-Fusion speaker thing that makes it easy to listen when I’m working in the kitchen, making dinner or tidying up. So if I can be trapped in a place doing a relatively mindless thing and listen to something that’ll expand my horizons or make me laugh, I’m pretty happy.

That said, here’s a brief summary of some of the podcasts I listen to. You can find links to these podcasts on the transcript for this podcast. Go to www.aneclecticmind.com and click the Podcast link in the navigation bar to find it.

First on the list are a handful National Public Radio (or NPR) podcasts. There are 355 of these podcasts and I’ve tried at least 20 of them. I listen to five of them regularly.

  • NPR: Story of the Day is a daily selection of a story from NPR’s programming. These stories are wide-ranging in topics: business, war, travel, entertainment — you name it.
  • NPR: Business Story of the Day is a daily selection of a business story from NPR’s programming. Stories cover anything business related, from Silicon Valley news bits to global oil production information and lots of stuff in between. It keeps me informed about the business world.
  • NPR: Satire from the Unger Report is a weekly podcast of satire by Brian Unger. It’ll make you laugh — and think.
  • NPR: Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! is a weekly radio quiz show about the news. It has a panel of three celebrities (no, not the kind in People magazine) and call-in contestants. The questions and answers lean toward the comical, so the show is extremely entertaining.
  • NPR: Sunday Puzzle is a weekly podcast of word games with an NPR host, Will Shortz (of the New York Times), and a telephone contestant.

I’ve tried other NPR podcasts, but eventually lost interest in them. And as I prepared this list, I noticed a bunch of new ones to try out. So I might report on some additional podcasts from NPR in the future.

I also listen to American Public Media (APM) Future Tense. It’s a great podcast with short episodes about technology topics.

I listen to three PBS podcasts:

  • American Experience is a podcast with short episodes about historical topics. Recent episodes included the Gold Rush and New York.
  • NOVA is a podcast of brief stories from the NOVA science television show.
  • NOW is a podcast of rather lengthy stories form the NOW news television show. Sometimes the stories interest me and I listen to them. Other times, the stories don’t interest me and I just delete them.

I also watch a NOVA video podcast, which I find excellent. It combines science information with video and still images in a 2 to 3 minute podcast. I like some episodes so much that I save them as movies on my iPod so I can show them to others.

Speaking of video podcasts, I also subscribe to a number of others:

  • GARY-PAUL TV is a video podcast of weird stuff published by Gary-Paul Prince of Peachpit Press. My favorite episode, which I’ve saved as a movie for future viewing, is “Drinking and Driving Texas Style.”
  • Comedy Central: Stand-Up is a video podcast of stand up comedy segments. I only like about half of these, but the ones I like arae really good, so I keep checking in.
  • National Geographic Video Shorts are short video segments from National Geographic television shows.

I also used to enjoy a video podcast called CockpitCast, which showed video out the front window of various commuter jets as they landed at airports in western U.S. cities, but there hasn’t been a new release in a long time, so I don’t know if the pilots are still doing it.

Another aviation podcast I enjoy is Betty in the Sky with a Suitcase. Betty is a flight attendant who loves to travel. She brings along her tape recorded and gets stories from other flight attendants, pilots, and people at the places she flies to. The stories are great but the audio quality is pretty bad sometimes. Still, I think it’s worth a listen. My favorite story? The one where a passenger who died of natural causes during a flight was not declared dead until after the flight was more than halfway to its destination.

For tech news and info, I’ve been trying two Wired magazine podcasts:

  • Wired Magazine is a podcast of short pieces from Wired magazine columns.
  • Wired News is a podcast of short news stories from Wired magazine.

I also subscribe to Slate magazine‘s Daily podcast, which includes interviews about Slate’s online pieces as well as audio versions of some of Slate’s online pieces. It gives me a chance to “read” Slate without having to visit the site. Of course, I only get a small portion of the thoughtful gems available online. I used to subscribe to Slate’s Explainer podcast, but have given it up because the topics weren’t all that interesting to me. You might like them, though, so check them and out see for yourself.

I subscribe to the WordPress podcast because of my interest in WordPress software. I admit that I’ve downloaded all episodes and have listened to just three of them. I think the podcast is good, but I have to be in the right frame of mind to listen to them.

The same goes for the Podcasting Underground podcast. Good, informative stuff, but I have to be in the mood to listen to information about podcasting.

For politics, I listen to a pair of real left-wingers. Sorry, but I am not a conservative at all, neo or otherwise.

  • Real Time with Bill Maher is an hour-long podcast of Maher’s HBO television series. He does an interview and then discusses one or more current political topics with a panel of three that usually includes one celebrity entertainer and one political figure. His panels always include someone sitting on the right, so both sides are represented. While I don’t agree with everything I hear, I like to hear the various viewpoints on current political topics. New Rules is a much shorter podcast that includes just the New Rules he lists at the end of his show.
  • MSNBC Countdown with Keith Olbermann is a collection of Olbermann segments from his MSNBC Countdown television show. Olbermann is a Bush basher — do doubt about it — and it amazes me that he says some of the things he says. It’s a real example of the First Amendment in action — if Olbermann said these kinds of things just once in a place like North Korea or Iran or Iraq under Saddam Hussein, he would have been shot dead for treason. But in our country, we’re allowed to voice all kinds of opinions. Olbermann’s aren’t the kind that’ll ever get on Fox News. My favorite bit? The count of times our president said “Stay the course” after Tony Snow told the press he’d only said it eight times. Classic reporting.

I also started listening to Penn Jillette’s weekday radio show on FreeFM, PennRadio. Penn Jillette is the big, fast-talking guy from the magic duo of Penn and Teller. An atheist (his Nevada license plate is the word “ATHEIST”) and libertarian, he definitely has some non-standard views of politics. But he also covers non-political topics. I don’t enjoy all of Penn’s podcast episodes — I probably delete about half of them without listening to more than a few minutes — but I like enough of them to keep my subscription. One of my favorite episodes was his interview of Phyllis Diller (who I didn’t even know was still alive). Ms. Diller had some fascinating stories to tell and I was especially touched by Penn’s patience when her memory failed her more than once during the interview.

And finally, one of the first podcasts I ever subscribed to, podictionary. This daily podcast, with 2 to 5 minute episodes, discusses the origin of a word or phrase. A weekly digest version is also available. Many, many thanks to Charles Hodgson for his dedication to the subject of word history.

Now you know what I’m listening to. What are you listening to? Share your comments and suggestions with me and other listeners by posting your comments on the transcript for this episode. Go to www.aneclecticmind.com, click the Podcasts link in the navigation bar, and scroll down until you find the “Episode 31: Podcast Stuff” entry. Or just use the Search box to search for the number 31. Then use the Comments link at the bottom of the entry to read other people’s comments and add your own.

And as always, thanks for listening. More later.