Have you ever wondered about the magic and mystery of the animated gif? They’ve been around for quite some time now… a bit like the cockroaches of the internet…but in a good way. Explore how the rose to prominence and remained the top choice for conveying any emotion perfectly. The Story of GIF    ...

A sad thing happened. Last week, I discovered I couldn’t access the admin side of my personal blog. I’d updated a set of plugins and thought maybe that threw something out of whack. I wasn’t too concerned though as I could still update as needed using other means. Figured I’d work on it as I had time. Noticed I got a huge influx of spams to my comments too…which was annoying but manageable from my WordPress app on my phone…and from periodically updating my .htacess file to block the bots. (Also noticed they do normal looking text now in those…they seem like real people until you look at what they’re linking to. Does that actually work?!?!) Poked around…tried disabling the plugins in various ways (deleting the plugins folder, deleting the lines from the database..) No dice. Uploaded a fresh wordpress installation to my host in a fresh database. Same problem…can’t access the admin side on the new one. Put in a call to my host as all my blogs’ admin pages were also inaccessible. They said they were working on it. It’d been several days with no progress, so I just decided to make a copy of everything, dump all my databases, clear out the whole server, and re-upload piece by piece. Everything was going swell…until I imported my sql file to my fresh local WordPress installation… And realized it only had up until sometime in 2011. And I’d already deleted the databases on the server. Meaning I’d lost two years worth of posts. I was in disbelief for a second…I mean I’ve been blogging for literally 13 years. It’s a big part of me. I don’t take a lot of pictures, so the blog is the only evidence I am alive really…keeping track for future me’s...

Check out Facebo.ok’s new biggest thing. Ehh…doing too much. This is not something I would use or care about. Find out...

Visit the Facebook...

Remember that website with the college courses fo free? Well two of the classes I signed up for started yesterday. Human Computer Interaction – Stanford University Doing this one for completion points…or really to see if it’s a good enough introduction to send new employees to. I’m bringing in an instructor to give the training I went to a few years back…even recruited some developers and business analysts to come as well. That’s being held next week. Building my army of UX Evangelists! Introduction to Logic – Stanford University This one is reeeeeallly fun! It makes you really use your brain! Here’s an example of exercises from the class : I write them on my whiteboard and pretend I’m a teacher, lol. Brain Power! They just added 72 new courses and I signed up for 2 more : Know Thyself – University of Virginia An investigation of the nature and limits of self-knowledge from the viewpoints of philosophy, psychoanalysis, experimental psychology, neuroscience, aesthetics, and Buddhism.  Readings are drawn from classical Western, non-Western, and contemporary sources. Leading Strategic Innovation in Organizations – Vanderbilt...

Microsoft has cut its last ties with MSNBC, dissolving its affiliation with the brand’s website. The breakup, announced Sunday night, comes after a 16-year partnership between the company and NBC. The latter is buying back its 50% share of the site for an undisclosed sum, according to numerous reports. The website will now move its headquarters from Redmond, Wash., to New York. Microsoft Pulls Out of...

Flash, specifcally mobile Flash, was effectively sentenced to death a while back. The first inklings came when Abode put out their own non-Flash media tool “Edge,” and then was confirmed when the company dropped 750 employees and halted all development of mobile versions of Flash, ostensibly forever. It’s not until now, however, that we’re seeing Flash really start to crumble. Android, once open to the protocol, will no longer be supporting Adobe Flash with its newest version, Jelly Bean. Flash Not Coming To Android Jelly Bean, Slowly Bleeding Out |...