I recently started following an intriguing fellow on Twitter that runs a pretty cool blog, Thereisabloginmysoup.com. Although the URL is a little long, the content is definitely spot on and a great read. Not only does Patrick Curl write about technology and similar topics but has very expansive posts on making your blog better through promotion and other techniques. Today Patrick wrote about an interesting experiment with Twitter.

Simply put he is calling all that those are interested and willing to post a comment to this blog post with their Twitter URL and RSS Feed URL. He then asked that everyone follow those that posted in the comments as well as subscribe to their RSS feeds. Now this might appear like a typical linkshare setup like others have done, but I really think that bringing Twitter into the fray makes this experiment much more beneficial.

If you aren’t familiar with Twitter, and I would be surprised if you weren’t, it has become one of the defacto quick communication standards for the web on the level of IM for the desktop. Twitter can be leveraged to expand your social profile as well as ways to promote anything and everything.

Now I can’t mention Twitter without talking about Pownce, one of my favorite tools to talk about anything, share files with friends, and keep on top of events. You can find me at Twitter and Pownce.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to build a house in the middle of nowhere and live off the grid? Growing your own food, using the sun for electricity, living a free existence away from the hustle and bustle that we commonly associate with life?

I have been thinking about what it would feel like, waking up every morning, going into the garden and picking fruit for breakfast. Going into the forest to gather firewood for a fire that evening. Enjoying the sun as it’s rays flow around your body doing work around the house. What would it be like to have nothing to worry about other than the day to day tasks of ‘life’?

It sounds like a sublime experience to live without the normal worry and strife we put ourselves through every day. As I wonder and dream of this existence, I am reminded of my love (borderline lust) of technology. The information and interactions that the internet brings me everyday. Could I give up this awesome thing that I have built my life around for so long now?

The short answer is YES, ultimately I feel like I could shed my desire for all materialistic desires. I believe though that life is about moderation, about compromise of those things you love and those that you don’t. With good there is bad, and to focus on one or the other is not healthy for anyone. I would mix a peaceful life living off the land with a partial connection to the outside world through a computer. What could top writing novels on your MacBook while watching the sunset outside with no distractions of other men?

Lately I have been extremely busy on two new projects, one being DataPortability, the other being Practical Portability which if you can tell is linked to DataPortability through similar cause and hopefully effect.

Richard Pendergast and I have been working for over the last seven months integrating existing open applications like Wordpress and phpBB, but with the tide of change that DataPortability brought with it, we decided to be apart of it. Ultimately the idea was to open source our work to date, but that just didn’t provide fruitful enough for the project as a whole and the objectives we are pursuing.

Though our original ideas and goals for Practical Portability have changed and aligned themselves even more with DataPortability, so much so that we hope that we can have just as much impact on smaller and new developers trying to implement data portability. It is interesting shifting from private development into the public space, there are a lot of challenges mainly due to organization and documentation. I am glad though that we made the move and joined DataPortability, there are some great people there with awesome ideas.

Over the last or so I have been reading a great series of books called The Runelords (each book has a separate title) written by David Farland. The Runelords are people with great power endowed to them by others willingly through devotion or extortion. They can amass great power, even having one man become stronger than a full army. It is a fascinating premise but at first leaves you to wonder what else is out there.

The first book really focuses on a young prince and those around him as he finds his fate much different than he ever imagined. Though the main antagonist can be immensely intimidating and an interesting character, you find out in the second book that he is the least of their worries. Now that I have hit the third book, I’m finally in the thick of the story and action. Some huge things have just been revealed that really change the way things are happening and make me wonder how much is out there that I don’t know. The books are very much about discovery and emotions, it is an odd combination but it works.

The only reason I am writing this instead of reading is I felt like sharing a little about the series. If you enjoyed epic fantasy with a well thought out timeline and premise, as well as very detailed writing, please check out David Farland’s great series The Runelords.

It might be ages ago in internet time, but the Gamespot-Gerstmann debacle rears its ugly head again. Long time freelance writer Frank Provo, with over seven years writing credit at Gamespot, left some ‘nice’ departing words on his Gamespot blog.

“I believe CNet management let Jeff go for all the wrong reasons. I believe CNet intends to soften the site’s tone and push for higher scores to make advertisers happy.

I won’t lie to people and tell them a game is good when it isn’t. I won’t downplay negatives that readers have a right to know about.”

Provo gives a little confirmation to an issue that looks to be an open sore to the underbelly of gaming journalism. Reputation is important and it looks like Gamespot has lost most if not all of it. You might wonder why Provo didn’t up and quit in the heat of the action?

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“Some people say that the bubble’s going to take a downturn in the next year or two - that huge numbers of copycat startups are going to shut down, people are going to be out of work and Web 2.0 cheerleaders are going to eat their (our) words.”

ReadWriteWeb details and compiles some great information about emerging technology filtering through the social web as we speak. Given time, I hope that we (Not At All Strange) can be champions and pioneers for the new ideas taking hold in the social web.

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The recipes are free also, but the site is intended for those that want new and fresh recipes that contain no animal products. That doesn’t mean you have to be a vegetarian or vegan to enjoy the recipes, as things can surely be substituted at will. I personally am interested in trying some of those recipes to see how they taste, as I am always willing to try something that tastes good and is healthy too.

Make sure to check out Veganbot for some kick ass taste bud exploding animal free recipes! He also has a forum setup for discussion on vegetarian and vegan topics as well as a place to submit your own recipes.

Some of you noticed my ever so late move to Twitter recently, I was on the prowl for something to make my micro-blogging more efficient between the two services I now use. I figured the simplest way to deal with two different systems was to make common updates to each service at the same time. My first foray into the WWW for a solution was to Google (search) “update pownce twitter.” To my surprise Google decided that I must be a bot and should verify my fleshy body by entering a visual code from an image.

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If you haven’t been living under a rock you would know that Apple has had three major releases this year. First it was the iPhone, as much as most people scorn it for its popularity, its not a bad device for what it can do. Then there was the iPod Touch, which took most of the great features from the iPhone and left out the phone part. Two great products with hopefully great futures of innovation with subsequent releases.

One product line to get a much needed subsequent release was their operating system, Mac OS X. Going from 10.4 to well 10.5, you might think it a small change compared to what Microsoft does with their Windows operating system. You are right, it is a much smaller step, but for most of the right reasons. One thing that Apple seems to do with their products is make the most mundane and small changes, but when you actually see them in action they can have profound effects. Case in point, resizing hard drive partitions.

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I have been using TextMate regularly on my MacBook for some time now, from anything like coding to the odd blog post. Having been avid in learning how to use many of TextMate’s advanced functionality I finally decided to look up how to use it properly for blogging. Let’s just say that it has done more than save my life, but maybe I have fallen in love with it once again.

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