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Category: Social media

  • A Place With Four Suns!

    A Place With Four Suns!

    “There is a place with four suns in the sky — red, white, blue and yellow; two of them are so close together that they touch, and starstuff flows between them. I know of a world with a million moons. I know of a sun the size of the Earth — and made of diamond…

  • Introducing Fractal Fran

    Introducing Fractal Fran

    Say hello to Fractal Fran, my new digital art assistant and avatar. She’ll be your guide to spellbinding digital designs and fractal art (plus, perhaps, occasional photography of a more traditional nature). Large, soulful eyes. Neon turban. Green whiskers. Small, pursed lips. These and other traits mark Fran as an emissary from the Vardax home-world. Vardax…

  • A “Gary Gallery” of Selected Photos

    Recent photos I’ve been wanting to show off, but haven’t been able to think of an excuse. I’ve therefore decided I don’t need an excuse! Here is the first “Gary Gallery” in what I intend as a periodic series:   Also, this recent fractal drawing I generated using Apophysis: I call it “My Hearts Have a…

  • Google Plus: Track Posts and Comments

    Google Plus: Track Posts and Comments

    You’ve written a wildly popular post on Google Plus. People are talking. Lots of reshares, including some by social-media heavyweights whose followers greatly outnumber yours. You shared it first, perhaps, as a link to your blog, with a terse summary. You shared it again as a standalone article, with a great cover photo. Again with a…

  • More Fancy Fonts and Special Characters

    More Fancy Fonts and Special Characters

    Brighten your social-media posts with fancy fonts and special characters! Like this: ℱᗩﬡᙅᎩ ℱOﬡ☂ᔕ and ϟ℘ℯ¢ḯαł ℭнαґα¢☂εґṧ. As ever-more publishing migrates to social platforms like Facebook and Google Plus, the apparent lack of formatting options becomes confining indeed. On Facebook we have essentially none. Google Plus users are lucky: There we at least have boldface, italic, and…

  • Google Comments Unleashed

    Google Comments Unleashed

    What’s the most important new resource for bloggers and web designers, now that link images appear full-width on Google Plus? Most articles focus on increased website traffic, since these highly visible images click through to their target links. That’s indeed important. Even more important, however, in my view, is the fresh incentive this gives to…

  • Google Plus displaying full-width link images

    Google Plus displaying full-width link images

    The Google Plus social network apparently has just begun displaying link images as full-width photographs — not simply as thumbnails. [UPDATE: From Saturday, March 15 through Monday, March 17 — the Ides of March through Saint Patrick’s Day — Google Plus links reverted to the old-style thumbnail images. As of today, March 18, they are…

  • Facebook’s Digital Unclaimed Freight Train

    Facebook’s Digital Unclaimed Freight Train

    What will happen, 30 years from now, to the 300 million photos we uploaded yesterday to Facebook? Image Source Here’s your answer: Facebook will have them. We (probably) won’t. Facebook will have them labeled, categorized, ranked, and documented as to where and when they were taken, what they’re of, and who’s in them. We (almost…

  • Introducing Heart to Heart HD

    The Astonished Tamale! is pleased to introduce a new service for its readers. We’re calling it Heart to Heart HD. You can test-drive it here. (Or simply click the “Heart to Heart HD” item on the black menu bar above.) A bit of history: Heart to Heart (without the HD) is an omnibus slideshow addressing more than 700…

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