On Saturday evening, I was doing what I usually do – check up on blog feeds, twitter, and the like. And given that it’s nearly Christmas, of course all of the feeds were dominated with… SALE! FREE SHIPPING! BUY ME! LOVE ME! ETC!

However, I found something different admist the noise of consumerism — a post from the Bloggess with a movie reference to when the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes. She described of a giveaway she held for $30 giftcards for those in need who posted a comment describing their situation.

Soon, the need was far greater than the amount of gift cards available to give – and people were writing stories that could break even the coldest of hearts – stories of families who were going to wrap empty boxes, layoffs, or who could not put food on the table or buy any gifts for their children this Christmas.

So I (collectively along with hundreds of other bloggers and fans of social media) posted that I would give a giftcard in the comments, and a few hours later I received my Secret Santa — someone who I’ve never met, but who is in need of some Christmas cheer. [The end result was over 900 gift cards sent to those in need!]

The emails from my Secret Santa nearly broke my heart – it was the story of a daughter who was posting on behalf of her mother, who has been very ill and unemployed, and lives hours away from where she receives treatment.

It’s a story we all hear far too often – high medical bills, poor local medical care, unemployment, and just a need for some hope .

So,  what better way to get people involved than via blogging and social media? This is, in essence, what it’s all about. Being able to coordinate real-time and connect people together to make something happen – not because we have to or our boss told us to – but because we WANT to.

After sending across an Amazon Gift Card, I received an email from my Secret Santa which was so real and relatable that I couldn’t help but cry. A big thank you to the Bloggess for setting this up and reminding all of us what Christmas is really all about.

I actually told my mother about your gift a little while ago.  She didn’t believe me at first, thinking I was giving her something of mine, and covering up.  lol  I convinced her that it was true, and she cried.  So, thank you for that.  : )  Of course, her immediate reaction was to spend it on a gift for me, but she finally conceded to use it for herself.  I filled her in on the whole the Blogess situation, and we had a lengthy discussion about what Christmas is really about.  Thanks for being a part of this.  Amazing.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all you readers of the Techyness.

[Note: the giveaway from the Bloggess has been closed as of 12/20/11 - but keep in mind there are always chances to make a difference in someone's holiday season... there's still time!]

//graphic via theBloggess.com

I think my fairy godmother was present for this life moment.

I like tech. And people. But what I like the most is helping people with technology.  Sure, I’ve received a few frantic phone calls in my time from family and friends that have gone something like…

“ALANA!”

“Hey, whats wrong?

“I’m really sorry to bother you… BUT… I just spilled [coffee, water, hot tea, beer, wine, etc.] all over my [macbook, macbook pro, iPod, blackberry, cell phone] AH OMG!”

Lately, my people+tech work has been a little bit different than the whole “ok. breathe.  make sure your computer is off and remove the battery ASAP! Don’t try to turn it back on! step away from the computer.”

When I see a blog or some sort of online effort that has some serious promise, I can’t keep my mouth shut. I mean, doesn’t everyone love free tech consulting?

It started with Kappa Alpha Theta, @BettieLocke, and their blogs.

Next up is my friend Brittany‘s blog, “Crowning Celebrations.” Brit is an extremely talented designer, event/wedding planner, and overall just the classiest person I’ve met. If you don’t believe me, check out a photo gallery of her past work.

Also up on the list is Run ‘Til I’m Fun. These fellow ‘Cuse alums are dedicated to the cause of running long distances (which is awesome) and they’re pretty hilarious too. It shows that they are fans of 2B1B.  My former (slash lifelong) roommate Sarah says:

A security guard standing outside of a building applauded me, stuck out his hand for a high-five and yelled out “keep it going, gorgeous!”   This man single-handedly made my day.  A standing ovation, a high-five and a compliment when I have no makeup on and my hair is in a sweaty bun?  God, these tights are magical. – via Run ‘Til I’m Fun.

So, all you bloggers out there who are interested in my “5 minute e-mail of advice” feel free to shoot me an email at amedmunds@gmail.com.

Sure I’m no member of the Startup Princess Fairy Godmother Consulting team, but who knows, maybe I’ll drop them an email too.

Remove 10 Friends and Get a Whopper?

There’s tons of content out there- we’re hit up in every direction with status updates via Facebook, what people are doing via Twitter, where people are from britekite, what people are thinking about from their blogs.

A new trend is “de-friending” (removing people from your facebook friends list) and “un-following” (removing ‘friends’ from twitter.

It’s a way to filter out the noise, a way to get back to reading what you really want to- but, of course, people defriend for different reasons – maybe you’re trying to get over a breakup and would prefer not to see what your ex did over the weekend, or maybe you forgot who that person is that friended you, anyway.

Regardless of the reason, it’s becoming a trend- especially as people who were originally skeptical of social networking sites are starting to join.

The New York Times describes a Burger King promotion, “Whopper Sacrifice,” that gave a free Whopper to those who defriended 10 people- AND BK send each of these people an email (normally you don’t get an email when someone defriends you) as it was a side app you had to “install” on your account. It’s one of the most creative (and what a buzz it created!) marketing promotions I’ve seen in a long time.

Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell (great book), wrote earlier this year that ’09 would be

“Defriending becomes the hot new trend, driven by overwhelming rivers of newsfeeds. The movement is rooted in a desire to have quality, not quantity, as people cocoon in the face of the economic crisis. Facebook apps will emulate Twitter Grader, allowing you to prioritize your friends based on their overall social ranking — and prune safely to ensure the highest quality friends.”

Although you feel a little guilty about it sometimes, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being picky on who you “listen” to.

You Know You're Guilty Of It!!!

Admit it.

You’ve googled yourself. And it’s ok, all the cool kids are doing it.

Even though it sounds weird, and maybe even a little bit concieted, it’s a pretty smart thing to do, because you know that poential employers aren’t hesitating to type your name in that search box after looking at your resume.

However, there are a few sites that can help you decipher through the crazy web of information that links to you (Via TImesUnion.com)

First check out 123people.com, a site that was featured on Killer Startups, who said “ype in any name and 123 will pull up contact information—phone numbers, email addresses, images, and any media available, i.e. videos, profiles, tags, and weblinks. If you’ve got videos on Youtube, a LinkedIn profile, a Wiki article, even a Facebook or Google account, 123 People will find it.” You can also search by geographical region — and it’s free.

Spokeo Search Results-- 184 friends on Pandora!?!

The site found all the pictures of me via images.google.com, links that mentioned me, documents on the web that featured my name, a tag cloud of relevant words, links to all social networking pages, and even links to pages that are considered “biographical” in nature. humm.

Second, check out Spokeo, a site that searches through social networking sites– including facebook, flikr, myspace, webshots, youtube, amazon, livejournal, picasa, imeem, linkedin – the whole lot. According to Wikipedia, Spokeo was founded in 2006 by Stanford grads. It’s kindof free, but kindof not free (subscription method).

To use Spokeo, all you need is an email address and it automatically searches for information on your gmail (or hotmail, etc) contacts.

If you don’t like what you see on these sites, simply note what you found and from what site — and login to that site and change your security preferences. Better now than later, trust me :)

We’ve all seen (or heard rumors, or looked for) those hidden secrets in movies (especially Disney), DVD extras, software, hardware, or firmware.

Deemed “easter eggs,” because they’re fun to look for and even more fun when you actually find them, facebook’s pirate english is no exception to this “fun” rule- even if it means that your cell phone is called a “parrot” videos are “bewitched portraits” and friends are “Hearties.”

Wikipedia gives a better explanation: Easter eggs are messages, videos, graphics, sound effects, or an unusual change in program behavior that sometimes occur in a software program in response to some undocumented set of commands, mouse clicks, keystrokes or other stimuli intended as a joke or to display program credits.

So, basically, you’ve got a bunch of nerdy programmers looking to stretch their talents- aka hiding something silly/geeky/funny/techy into whatever it is they are creating. And other crazy techy people love to look for them. It’s similar to how you would search for those secret codes or passages in Mario Kart (i <3 mariokart…)

And Facebook’s Pirate English is no exception… according to nick burcher’s blog, Facebook rolled out this new language (and trust me, it’s a full language) not only to show off their translation skills, but on “national pirate day.”

Mashable writes that Facebook also like to hide quotes at the bottom of the page, including (but not limited to) “only the craftiest of quails survive hunting season”. Highlight the area to see it. Interesting.

In the mean time, check out eeggs.com for the Easter Egg Archive: Movies, DVDs, Software, Operating Systems and other stuff.  View the top 25 application easter eggs here and the worst 25 here.

Downgrade: new regulations have limited the number of secret nerdy things you can add into an application- mainly because of the fear behind this thought: if you can add in a seperate language, what else can you do? who is checking your work?

boo. i vote for innovation and the creation of hilarious languages.