Category: Google Plus
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Two Words: Dependent / Dependant
Is it dependent or dependant? Perhaps either one? And what does this have to do with smoking hippopotamuses? First, the grammar gremlin: To be dependent (with an “e”) is to rely on, or be supported by, something or someone. Maybe I’m dependent, for example, on coffee to get me going in the morning. In British…
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Irfanview: A Top-Tier Photo Editor
Irfanview is a small, lightning-fast, super-powered photo editor for Microsoft Windows. If you ever touch digital images, you need it. I promised recently to write about my favorite writing tools. Irfanview is one of them. This may seem strange. How is an image editor a “writing tool”? Writers need images and illustrations. Maybe not all…
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Jonah Miller’s “Shrill, Empathic Joys”
You do know I’m a science geek, right? The only problem being, I know very little about actual science! It’s a field – or rather, a collection of fields – for which I have no formal training, no math foundation, no research experience. What I do instead is read obsessively – books, magazines, blogs, and…
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One Word: Worth a Thousand Pictures
Does anyone else feel oppressed by the “tyranny of pictures”? I do, and I’m fighting back with a new series of posts about words I love. Words that interest, fascinate, and delight me; words that (for me) carry depths of meaning mere pictures can’t duplicate. One article per word — posted ᴡɪᴛʜᴏᴜᴛ ᴘɪᴄᴛᴜʀᴇs. Here’s why…
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Real Names Are Highly Overrated!
Google recently reversed its “real names” requirement for members of its Google Plus social network. Good call, Google — and good riddance. It’s about time! In the Internet’s early days, being online was all about anonymity. You could create a mask. You could hide behind it in cyberspace. You could be — or appear to…
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Format Text on tsū? Here’s How!
Text formatting on tsū, the new social network that pays for submissions, may at first seem impossible. It isn’t! Oh, tsū still doesn’t have the rich formatting options of Google Plus. (No bold or italic for example.) You can’t even divide your text into paragraphs, as you can on Facebook. Yet. I say “still” and “yet” because tsū is…
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See Me on tsū!
See Me on Tsu! Let’s connect on the network that pays us for what we post. Seriously, Tsu — pronounced “Sue”, as in — is a new social platform. It’s barely a week old. It’s hot. Need an invite? Use mine: http://www.tsu.co/GaryMatthewsWhen you sign up, Tsu will ask you to “enter a member’s shortcode”.…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…