The obvious workaround is to put “@ ” at the beginning of any tweet that I don’t want to show up on Facebook…but that’s kind of annoying.  I also use Ping.fm which I have  written about previously.  So, I thought, how about I sync my Facebook status to one of the other services that Ping.fm posts to?  Unfortunately I couldn’t find one that had a decent Facebook app. Supposedly the Pownce app can sync, but I couldn’t get it to work.

The upside is that Ping.fm will be able to post to Facebook soon. They had the feature for a while, but with the recent Facebook upgrades the feature broke. Once it’s up and running again, I’ll be able to use the “triggers” feature to choose which services to post to post to select networks only.

All this for pretending folks want to know what I’m doing

Flickurbook is a very barebones way to transfer a Flickr album to Facebook. It’s as easy as typing in your Flickr username, authenticating with Facebook, and choosing which album(s) to import.  The import takes a few minutes (it took about 5 minutes to import a 22 photo album). The Flickr titles you have for your photos are transferred too, which saves some hassle.

What about transferring the other way, from Facebook to Flickr? You’re better off uploading the originals straight to Flickr since the resolution on Facebook photos is pretty low, but there are apps out there, including this one for the Mac. There are also quite a few Facebook apps for displaying Flickr photos on your Faceobook profile.

A-1 Appliance Parts sells parts for just about any appliance you could possibly have at home.  I personally buy water filters for my fridge from A-1.  Water filters are one of those things that you don’t think about buying until you absolutely have to replace them. I almost bought at regular retail price from the manufacturer, but a bit of Googling led me to A-1, where I saved $6/fiilter (on a $30 filter, so 20% off) and received free shipping.  Great deal.

In addition to great prices, they’ve got fast order turn-around times…I received my package within two days of ordering. I’d recommend A-1, check them out.

“Top MBA programs don’t have a monopoly on advanced business knowledge: you can teach yourself everything you need to know to succeed in life and at work. The Personal MBA Recommended Reading List features only the very best business books available, based on thousands of hours of research. So skip b-school and the $100,000 loan: you can get a world-class business education simply by reading these books.”

The reading list is broken down into several sections, and there is no need to read in order.  It’s not all business, either. There’s a whole section on “Psychology & Communication”.

You may have already read some of the books, as I had…such as “Getting Things Done” by David Allen and “The 4-Hour Workweek” by Timothy Ferriss. So far I’m enjoying the reading list and getting a fair amount of benefit from it, especially considering I haven’t paid a dime for the books I’m getting from the library.

The Personal MBA isn’t a substitute for an MBA program, but is more than adequate for those of us who want to get some basic MBA knowledge for our own endeavors.

There are several ways to submit updates using Ping.fm: via IM (several services), through the web interface, by email, and others.  I update using the email option from my iPhone because I don’t have to worry about my internet connection…the email will get sent as soon as there’s connectivity, and my updates will get processed.

The development team (Sean?) is very active…it seems that every week there’s a new service to ping (that I just have to sign up for) or new features, like automatic link shortening, the ability to send updates to a specific set of services, and also the ability to post to blogs.

Send me a message if you’d like an invite as Ping.fm is currently in private beta.

Craigslist is a great place to sell or give away pretty much anything, and you might be surprised at how much people are willing to pay. I have sold a car, furniture, computer parts, and various other items. I prefer Craigslist over Ebay because buyers are usually local, so you don’t have to deal with shipping.

If you have stuff to get rid of that you don’t necessarily want to sell, try Freecycle. Most major cities and a lot of smaller cities in the US have a Freecycle group, which is a Yahoo! group where you can post an item you want to get rid of for others to pick up. I’ve used this service several times and have gotten rid of everything I’ve posted.

Two sites I discovered recently but haven’t looked at in depth are Wigix and Ztail. Wigix (an acronym for Want It Got It eXchange) is essentially an online classifieds system with a pricing structure similar to but cheapter than eBay’s. Ztail lets users post and sell items and have other users determine their value or worth. There’s also Costco’s Trade-In program. I haven’t tried it yet, but it might be worth a shot.

Of course you could use most of these sites to acquire more stuff, but that would be defeating the point, wouldn’t it?

There are plenty of arguments supporting digital downloads, some quite surprising, like the environmental impact of purchasing and (eventually) disposing of compact discs.  Lately I have been thinking more about the clutter aspect.  I have many CDs that I’ve listened to once or twice on disc, and have ripped to my hard drive.  Of course there are some that I’d prefer to have on disc, but what about albums that would be fine in MP3 format?

I recently tried out Amazon’s MP3 Downloads and was surprised to find their prices were cheaper than Amazon’s, and all of the downloads are DRM-free.  So I downloaded a couple of albums at $9.99 a piece and am quite pleased with my decision to save a few dollars on albums that I don’t need a hard copy of.

What about this price difference?  According to some sources, the major record labels are offering companies other than Apple, such as Amazon, a price break because they’re not so happy with the iTunes domination.  Check out the Coding Horror article about this.

All that to say, check out Amazon’s MP3 Downloads.

Here are a few features worth pointing out:

• Broadcasters have a “channel” where viewers can watch most recent broadcasts and highlights if there is no live feed at the time.  There is a standard chatroom-type interface for communicating with the channel owner and other viewers, again, even if there is no live feed.
• Broadcasters can schedule shows and have MySpace bulletins and Twitter tweets sent out when a broadcast begins.
• The quality of the broadcast can be tweaked for specific applications by adjusting bitrates on video and audio independently
• Starting a broadcast is really simple…it takes a matter of seconds to get up and running.
• You can embed a video player into any site, meaning a viewer does not have to visit Justin.tv to see a broadcast

I have not played around with the service enough to get a good feel for it, and have not yet tried it using a wired internet connection.  There are other services, too, like Ustream, and supposedly Youtube will have a live feed service soon.

You can visit our recording studio channel at http://justin.tv/wizkidsound.

I have a “Workouts” calendar in Google Calendar, which I print out each month and put somewhere visible (i.e. the fridge!) to help remind me of what’s coming up, and have shared it here.  I have a few friends who have subscribed to it so we can work out together occasionally.

I use Joe’s Goals to keep track of my progress.  Joe’s Goals lets you set, yep, goals, and mark off each day you complete a goal.  It’s similar to Jerry Seinfeld’s calendar technique, and provides motivation by encouraging you not to break the chain.

For mapping out running routes I use Gmaps Pedometer.  You can save routes for future reference or for sending to friends.

There are plenty of other tools to help you keep a workout shcedule, and there are plenty of articles that discuss ways to motivate yourself to begin and maintain an exercise routine.

Adobe’s Buzzword is completely Flash-based, which may be a deterrent to some, but in my opinion it has allowed Adobe to create a word processor that provides a richer user experience than is found in other online word processors.

When you first sign in to Buzzword, you are presented with an alphabetical list of your documents, which you can re-sort by author, role (author, co-author, reviewer, reader), date viewed, date modified, or size. You can select a document or select “New” from the Document drop-down.

The main document window takes a no-frills approach to getting the task done, but it provides just enough sleekness and eye candy to make the user experience a bit…dare I say…fun? Instead of describing each feature, I have provided several screenshots of the Welcome document that appears in your account by default.

Here’s a list of some of the things that have caught my attention while using Buzzword

• Page numbers in the vertical scrollbar
• Document ruler
• Clean inline commenting system
• Paragraph alignment feels like a feature rather than an afterthought
• Ability to add headers and footers
• Dropdown menus have “native OS” feel
• Unobtrusive auto-save/synchronization
• Ability to save as Word doc, docx, xml, rtf, plain text, and zip

You can sign up now for Adobe Buzzword as they are in public beta phase.  Also, check out these other reviews, a video review, and an article about Adobe’s acquisition of Buzzword from the original developers.

* Note that Buzzword currently “supports” certain browsers, but I have not run into any issues using Firefox 3 which is currently my default browser, except the lack of paste support, which apparently is available when using other browsers.