On weekends we often end up at one of the local childrens museum since the kids love it. As it should be, these places focus on engaging and teaching while keeping the fun intact.

This particular exhibit is a steering mechanism that turns the pole (and everything attached to the pole) whenever the wheel is turned. How does it work? If you are an adult you say “gears”.

If you are a child, you might say “magic”.

On the side of the table there is a plexiglass window that shows how the gears work to turn the pole.

Education: 1
Magic: 0

Are there things we do everyday that appear to be happen magically to our public?

Maybe we should share the magic.

@BlahGeeTsa asked what audio players were out there and of course I had to respond with my favorite - http://www.macloo.com/examples/audio_player/

If you have ever listened to audio from a Wordpress page you have probably seen it already. It is a great player because it is simple and I find it to be very reliable. One of the cool features is - when set up correctly, starting a second instance of the player will turn off the first instance.

But then, just when I thought I had the perfect player, @ScottyIseri (you know, of “Scotty Got An Office Job” fame) shows up with this bad boy.

I like it alot! Here is the home page.

What are your favorites?

[Here is a page that has the player I was first talking about.

This is just the development site, but most things should work.

hitlist-preview.com]

Here is a post from @jowyang talking about his approach to web strategy. It is a nice visual representation of what needs to be included for a campaign to be successful. He points out that whatever tasks you cannot perform yourself - you need to learn to delegate. Obvious point, but a good reminder.
The Three Shperes Of Web Strategy

One of the things I hate about wordpress is, not unlike adobe reader, it is always out of date. Good for the boys they are cranking out great new versions - but that nagging message that is right in the middle of everything you do on the admin screen drives me crazy.

Until now. Just install this plugin and the update nag will bother you no more.

This is my first officially released plugin and I thought I would start small. Other than the wp calls it is literally one line of code. I have made larger, more complex plugins but was always too lazy to clean them up for public release.

Let me know if you like it.

no-update-nag.zip

I have seen a growing number of “Twitter for Business” type posts lately and here is another.

He basically points out most of the things any frequent twitter user would know, but sometimes it is nice to get a well laid out list in front of you.

He also points to a number of other twitter for business articles at the bottom of the page, so you can get your twitter fill all in one setting.

I particularly like the one about using twitter as an ad hoc focus group. Its OK to ask “How am I doing?” once in a while.

http://blog.thelettertwo.com/2008/10/09/my-experience-with-twitter-a-collaboration-of-tips/

How ironic is it that my last post 6 months ago was about Brian Gardeners Revolution Themes (no one clicked and got me any money, btw) and just today I met with Brian Gardener?

Is that ironic or just a run-on sentence? Maybe both.

Anyway, he informs us that WordCampChicago is underway and it is going to be a good one.

http://wordcampchicago.com/

This happens in July! Can’t wait.