Category: Misc
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Is It “Egotistical” to Own Your Own Name on the Web?
Is it “egotistical” to own your own name as a dot-com? Elitist? Pretentious? Narcissistic? And does it give you an “unfair advantage” over others? Certain readers have been asking questions like these, ever since I started urging you all to register your own names — whenever possible — as dot-com Internet domains. Like I did…
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There’s Hope Yet for a Clean Energy Future
Two energy related news items give me hope! The first is from David Brin’s “Contrary Brin” blog, davidbrin.wordpress.com — his 13 August 2013 entry. The second was shared by Barney Leith on Google+. Sweden Can’t Get Enough Garbage You read that right: Sweden is running out of garbage, thanks to highly efficient recycling habits,…
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Owning Your Own Email Name (for free)
If your name is still available as an Internet “domain name”, buy it now. Ditto your children’s names. Here’s a recent article where I explain why. As I say there, it costs peanuts to take ownership of your web-name: GaryMatthews.com, PeterFlipsen.com, or whatever yours would be. And I stress — again — that you should…
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Owning Your Own (Web) Name: Why You Must Grab It NOW
If your name is still available, snap it up. Now. Please! There will never be a better time. I’m referring to your web-name. Specifically, to the Internet “domain name” that matches your “regular” name. Your “regular” name is the one by which people introduce you. For example, if your name is Ed Smith, then your…
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Ai Hasegawa: Shared-baby Shark Mama
We can all see that the letters in “Ai Hasegawa, Shark Mother” rearrange to spell “Aha! Hogwash! Rare mistake.” But it isn’t hogwash, and it isn’t a mistake. It’s a rare “Aha” moment brought to us by a wacky genius I suspect we’ll be hearing a lot more about. Ai Hasegawa is an artist, animator,…
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Owning My Own Name — Part 3
Thank you, Google! By that I mean, thank you for your continuing campaign to raise your search-engine rankings for good, content-driven websites, and for your escalating war against sleazy ones. You’re catching hell for this, Google. But keep giving it back, and keep it up. You’re doing the right thing. By “good, content-driven websites” I…
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A Social-Sharing Privacy Pitfall
Being a late-comer to social-media, I’m discovering its pleasures — and pitfalls. Among the pitfalls is that it’s easy to hold a private conversation in public, without realizing it. And “share” way more than we intended! This happens a lot to politicians and celebrities. They make some unguarded comment, not realizing there’s an open microphone…
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Heart to Heart Baha’i Site: Year in Review
Heart to Heart HD, the Baha’i teaching site launched last year by Stonehaven Press, is a hit! One year (and 12 days) later, the site’s traffic monitor shows: There were nearly 7000 “unique visitors”. These viewers paid more than 19,000 visits in all. Thus each visitor visited, on average, 2.78 times. Average visits-per-visitor have risen…
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Now Turning Heads: sʍǝɥʇʇɐW ʎɹɐ9
As of today (April 1), I’m changing my name from Gary L. Matthews simply to Gary Matthews. In other words, dropping the middle initial (L). But with a twist — literally: From now on, my name is to be written, typed, spelled, and spoken — UPSIDE DOWN. Like this: sʍǝɥʇʇɐW ʎɹɐ9 Please note, it’s still…
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Owning My Own Name — Part 2
A few weeks ago, I voiced my elation at acquiring the web domain GaryMatthews.com. (This very website, which appeared on 28 January, 2013, one day after the domain became mine.) Since then, I’ve put some effort into designing the site, and figuring out how best to promote it. There’s a huge amount of work. Fortunately,…
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The Next Hacker Onslaught
You already knew the Internet was a dangerous place. But now there’s a new danger — and what’s maddening is that it’s being created (inadvertently) by some of the web’s largest companies. Facebook. Microsoft. Yahoo. Google. Probably others. Those companies are systematically training us to enter our usernames and passwords for their accounts — email,…
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New “Ether” Book from Stonehaven
My book, ‘Abdu’l-Baha, Einstein and Ether, is now available in an expanded, beautifully illustrated second edition. The new paperback, from Stonehaven Press, is 72 pages, perfect-bound, with 8″ by 5″ trim size. It is also the first Stonehaven volume to appear in ebook form: It’s currently available for Nook, iPad, and most other e-reader devices…