Todd Lyden

Some might say taking a six year old to see "Thor" was a mistake, but EVERYONE wanted to see it, even her. "Thor was really cool. Thor kissed a girl." She asked us Sunday when we said we wanted to all go to the movies as a family that SHE wanted to see "Thor." Good choice as you can tell from her school work today. She wrote this note herself with the illustration- notice the hammer. Everyone, including the six year old girl, loved Thor. So will you. Related articles Name That Thor Artist! (goodcomics.comicbookresources.com) Thor Movie Review (ginosblog.com)

Image via Wikipedia This blog is hosted on Google's Blogger . I am an unrepentant Google fan. You've probably seen the information about the Bloggerpocalypse of 2011 . There were recent reports about the reliability of Blogger versus so many other platforms. Does this hurt?  I'd say no. How many complaints have you heard against a variety of web hosting companies. Bluehost, Host Gator and Godaddy are all still standing right? Loyalist like what they like. Sure, there are plenty of reasons to consider a Wordpress.com or .org account, but is it any more reliable? The bigger question becomes: do we trust the cloud? Uhm, what do you think your website with oodles of pages is sitting on? Unless you have it on your OWN server (and backed up), it's pretty much the same. The cloud is doing EXACTLY what it is supposed to. The scary part is that more and more traditional drive based and desktop-based functions are moving towards the cloud. Look at Microsoft Office 365 ! You don...

Image via Wikipedia Everyone is creating blogging topic helpers. Brogan is selling them. Others giving them away for free. Decided I wanted some inspiration and found it a few weeks ago with the release of the Foo Fighter 's Wasting Light album. I wrote about the first  line of the first song was "These are my famous words" and I asked, what would yours be (in 140 characters of course). So what about the rest of the songs? Turns out Grohl gives food for thought. "A Matter of Time" opens with "Let's change the subject to someone else." "Back and Forth" starts with "Once upon a time, I was someone else" "Arlandria's" first line is "Ain't that the way it always starts, a simple round of conversation." "I Shoulda Known" starts with the predicable "I should have known it would end this way." "White Limo," one of the least understandable songs in history, opens w...

photo © 2008 Ewan Munro | more info (via: Wylio ) How much courage does it take to do ______? How much courage did it take for President Obama to actually commit to the kill/capture of OBL? How much courage does it take for someone to put an opinion out there? How much courage does it take for you to post an "original" blog post? Does it take courage to do any of the above?  Wikipedia's definition of courage: " Courage , also known as bravery, fortitude, will, and intrepidity, is the ability to confront fear, pain, risk/danger, uncertainty, or intimidation." Dictionary.com: " the   quality   of   mind   or   spirit   that   enables   a   person   to  face   difficulty,   danger,   pain,   etc.,   without   fear ;  bravery." I would dare so there is no arguing that the folks that went in literally after OBL showed courage. However , there is a slight level of hyperbole apply...

photo © 2008 Cambodia4kids.org Beth Kanter | more info (via: Wylio ) In my job, I run into people everyday who do not get the APPLICATION of  social media  to their line of work. That's understandable. It's hard to see how something like Twitter can benefit a dry cleaner .   Facebook , isn't that for just looking at pictures? I could cite case study after case study, but I wanted to illustrate a personal effect for me. I've mentioned how I "met" Damond Nollan online before . Since then I've followed his efforts with  his blog and his radio show . In a "six degrees" kind of way, I've begun following the antics and writings of several other bloggers. First is Tim Arthur. Tim and Damond live relalatively close to each other, while I'm nearly an hour away. Tim's interest run the gamut. Most recently, pyrotechnics!(Seriously).  One of these days, I am going to be able to catch up with these guys and see a movie (another favor...

Twitter is so many things. But at its core, its a functional checkin service isn't it? If you use it the way most experts recommend, you are retweeting messages (links) from people you wanted shared, including a small mix of yours in for good measure. Isn't that just telling people what you are reading? I've seen some automated Twitter tool discussion lately. The gist was that people didn't like referring something that they maybe hadn't read. But that means that all functional checkins are just referrals right? Checking out an article, link, webpage, a restaurant, movie, book- it is all the same right? So as long as Facebook and Twitter allow us to aggregate those "checkins" or referrals, we will keep doing it. And Twitter ain't going anywhere fast.

Image via Wikipedia "These are my famous last words." That's how Dave Grohl opens the first song on the new Foo Fighter 's album, "Bridge Burning." Much of the album is introspective, but that line really got me thinking. What do you want your "famous last words to be?" Let's keep it to 140 characters! Related articles Foo Fighters Documentary 'Incredibly Uncomfortable' Viewing for Dave Grohl (spinner.com) Foo Fighters And "Godlike Genius" Dave Grohl To Rock Live On Letterman April 12 (kroq.radio.com) Disc of the week: Grohl and Co. bring it all back home (theglobeandmail.com) Foo Fighters' Inspiration For New Album "Wasting Light" (kroq.radio.com)