Ms. Adventures in Italy » Tech Talk http://www.msadventuresinitaly.com/blog My Stomach and the World. Food, Recipes, Travel and Photography by Sara Rosso. Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:33:31 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 2009 Year in Review: My Tools, Sites and Statistics http://www.msadventuresinitaly.com/blog/2010/01/08/2009-year-in-review-my-tools-sites-and-statistics/ http://www.msadventuresinitaly.com/blog/2010/01/08/2009-year-in-review-my-tools-sites-and-statistics/#comments Fri, 08 Jan 2010 10:16:53 +0000 Ms. Adventures in Italy http://www.msadventuresinitaly.com/blog/?p=2252 It’s that time of year when I geek out over what has happened in 2009, in terms of social networking, blogging, my photography, travel, and food! If you prefer picture books to novels, you can check my 2009 Year in Pictures. Interested in how other years have gone for me? Check the 2008, 2007 and 2006 editions as well.

Social Networking

I didn’t spend much time joining new mainstream social networks, but dedicated some time to finding some communities organized around action! (keep reading the entire post to find out what I mean)

  • In 2009 I remained very active on Twitter and Facebook and said goodbye to FriendFeed. I’m still using ASmallWorld, Flickr and LinkedIn but they are not the first sites I open each day.
  • Biggest resource of 2009: It remained Twitter. The diversity of people I follow or are exposed to through ReTweets and lists make it an immediate go-to for me.
  • Biggest sell-out of 2009: For me, it was FriendFeed. I think Facebook buying it (and subsequently not improving or investing in it) means it’s dead in the water, and I think FF really needs to improve the way users interact (perhaps adding photos to each comment) as some very interesting discussions occurred there but also some crazy flames and ganging up, too. Also, people deleting their accounts meant entire discussions disappeared. There’s a lack of accountability that I feel other sites handle better.
  • Bloggers met (in person) in 2009: This was a big year for seeing food bloggers at the BlogHer conference in Chicago, but I was a little upset BlogHer Food was announced after I’d made my plans (hurry up and announce if there’ll be a date in 2010!). I really enjoyed Travel Blog Exchange in Chicago where I met so many great travel bloggers. I continue to meet tons of Italian bloggers as an organizer for the Girl Geek Dinners in Milan.

Blogging, Photography and Computing

Fundraising, Donations, and Supporting Causes

This section has become even more important to me as this year I stepped up my giving efforts and put my money where my mouth is when it comes to supporting open source, services that I regularly benefit from and interesting causes.

  • Working with causes, powered by Social Networks and Bloggers: we continued Ovarian Cancer for Awareness in October with a great turnout, I contributed two great bid items to Menu for Hope and gave David a hand with the Europe round-up – we raised more than $78,000! I also want to give a shout-out to the travel bloggers’ initiative Passports with Purpose which raised more than $26,000 – this year I just donated money but hopefully next year I can be more involved.
  • Supporting other entrepreneurs via Kiva.org, which I had known about for quite some time, in July I bit the bullet and signed up to become a microloan lender. For now I’m concentrating on mainly female entrepreneurs. I know that I’m not donating directly to the individuals, but for now I still think it’s a worthwhile contribution that I can keep reinvesting.
  • Supporting interesting projects and the arts at Kickstarter.com – it’s a community-powered lending site for projects that are proposed by individuals and teams who are then responsible for getting 100% of the funded amount (or nothing at all) by a deadline. Most projects revolve around the arts (music, photography, film, design) and new projects are being inserted often! The project owners offer special incentives to donors based on the level of donation in the form of handmade things, photos, updates, etc., tailored to the project. It’s the 21st century of patronage. Here’s my profile. (Anyone have an invite to start a Kickstarter project? Contact me…I have an idea!)

Open Source Software and Creative Commons

I continue to be a big advocate of open source software and I’m also making some strides to contribute more in terms of my own T&M (time and materials).

Food, Cooking & Eating

This year, while I never stopped eating, I did decide not to keep up with the Joneses so much this year. I can’t be chasing the latest trend across the globe, stocking my pantry full of one-use ingredients, or making a ton of space in my tiny apartment for single plates, forks and endless napkins that I can’t use in normal life. When I moved apartments this year, and I had to choose between plates and memories as my meager belongings are still following me around the globe, it definitely struck me that I can’t become a food stylist with the shelf space I have available in the near future.

This year, I’m changing up my goals a bit. I’m trying to focus on a little more savory things and more “basics” – I got the book “Ratio” by Michael Ruhlman and I bought a few more cookbooks with some basics in them – I intend to do a little more offline reading this year for my cooking inspiration. Luckily I have a little space available to expand my cookbook collection (currently hovering under a dozen books!) as I made room for things during the move.

    First, let’s look back: How did I do on my “I Dare” cooking challenges for 2009? Again, not as well as I’d hoped.

    1. Cake, cupcake, cookie decorating – I did make valiant advances in looking for the perfect frosting recipe, but my decorating set remained mainly untouched.
    2. 12 Fresh Pastas – I continued to make fresh pasta like Fresh Spinach Reginette Pasta with Walnut Pesto and How to Make Fresh Homemade Spaghetti alle Vongole, Pasta with Clams but I didn’t get to 12 types, at least on the blog.
    3. Alternative flours, grains and legumes - I continue to use alternative grains every day but I’m not blogging about it.
    4. Playing with Flavored Liquor – I failed at this one.
    5. Croissants – this one, too :(

    I’m getting ready for World Nutella Day, in its 4th year, on February 5th, 2010!

    Reading and eBooks

    • Books (new) read in 2009: 79 (100% were ebooks). These are only new books for this year – I tend to re-read from my library as well. I also added a few paper cookbooks to the mix, too.
    • Ebook Advocate: I have been digital for 4 years now – I wrote a Guide to Ebooks for Ebook Week on my tech blog, When I Have Time, for those that are new to ebooks or are interested in getting started!

    Travel and Moving Around

    • Cities lived in: 1 – Milan, Italy; but I changed apartments, yay!
    • Countries visited: 4 – U.S., Dublin, Ireland; Paris, France, Istanbul, Turkey
    • Years without a car: 6.5 but this streak has ended. We officially picked up a used car at the end of the year. I’ll continue taking public transportation every day to work.
    • Carbon: According to Dopplr, a service I used to track my travels, for the first half of 2009 I totaled: 913 kg CO2
    • Moving around: I signed up for a gym after taking a break for a while, and started up with Nike+ sensor with my iPod Touch and I’m loving it.

    What about you – do you have any interesting stats you track for your end of year?

    Note: I have an Amazon affiliate store – many of the links in this post have an affiliate link to the Amazon site in case you are interested in buying that product. I will get a small percentage of the purchase price if you do (4-6%). Otherwise, plug the name of the product into Google and buy it somewhere else!

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    ]]>     http://www.msadventuresinitaly.com/blog/2010/01/08/2009-year-in-review-my-tools-sites-and-statistics/feed/ 6     My Love for Technology: An update on WhenIHaveTime.com http://www.msadventuresinitaly.com/blog/2009/11/11/my-love-for-technology-an-update-on-whenihavetime-com/ http://www.msadventuresinitaly.com/blog/2009/11/11/my-love-for-technology-an-update-on-whenihavetime-com/#comments Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:41:19 +0000 Ms. Adventures in Italy http://www.msadventuresinitaly.com/blog/?p=2114 WhenIHaveTime.com

    About six months ago, a lot of you gave me very valuable feedback when I launched When I Have Time.com. The tagline for the blog is Tips, Info and How-Tos to Bridge the Gap between Meek and Geek – and that’s the aim – to share information in an accessible way for curious people who are continuously learning and sharing.

    Today I’m here to tell you that I feel it’s been very successful so far and I’m so glad that I decided to launch it! My initial goal was to get away from answering these types of questions via email for a few people and open it up to whoever might have interest. (Email: select few; blog: needy masses)

    I’m an organizer for the Girl Geek Dinners in Milan and we’re working hard on raising awareness and sharing information about technology and the internet among women in Italy, but you’d be surprised how many people who are already prolific on the Internet are afraid of words like router, copyright, DNS, server.

    Many of the posts are driven by readers’ questions or conversations I have with people learning about technology. So if you have a question, make sure to let me know. I’ll try to answer as best I can. If you’re interested in sharing something through a guest post on When I Have Time, contact me with your idea!

    Here are a few highlights in case you’re interested in seeing what kind of content is being produced on When I Have Time:

    and from my popular “Ask the Geek” series

    And be sure and add the When I Have Time RSS feed to your blog reader! http://feeds2.feedburner.com/WhenIHaveTime or signup with your email address to receive posts via email – there are only a few per month, so you’ll have time to digest and act on what you’re reading.

    Thanks to everyone for your support!

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    ]]>     http://www.msadventuresinitaly.com/blog/2009/11/11/my-love-for-technology-an-update-on-whenihavetime-com/feed/ 5     Announcing My New Project: When I Have Time.com http://www.msadventuresinitaly.com/blog/2009/03/05/announcing-my-new-project-when-i-have-timecom/ http://www.msadventuresinitaly.com/blog/2009/03/05/announcing-my-new-project-when-i-have-timecom/#comments Thu, 05 Mar 2009 13:40:03 +0000 Ms. Adventures in Italy http://www.msadventuresinitaly.com/blog/?p=1151 I want to send a big “Thank You!” to everyone I who helped me with my new project, from creating and choosing the logo, to filling out my survey, to sending me in technical questions, I really appreciate the help and feedback.

    And I hope it continues.

    So, here’s some more information about my new site: When I Have Time.com: Tips, Info and How-To’s to Bridge the Gap between Meek and Geek

    wht2

    When I Have Time is a collection of tips, tricks, and how-to’s for the continuous learner. Topics range from very technical to explanations in layman’s terms, to productivity and organization tips, to asking technical questions and getting answers.

    This site is mainly about me and others helping you, though. I’m hoping you’ll either be a reader, suggest topics to me, send my articles to people who have similar questions, or even contribute as I welcome guest post contributions.

    If you’re on StumbleUpon (I’m rosso99) or Twitter (@rosso) or Digg or Del.icio.us, feel free to spread the love if you like what I post!

    Here are some highlights from the When I Have Time content I’ve posted so far, and yesterday I announced the start of a Guide to ebooks, electronic books which I’ll be posting in the next few days :

    And I have so much more content planned, it’s a wonder I’m not writing around the clock in the meantime!

    These are the initial sections of the site:

    I welcome your feedback, your comments, your guest posts, your (constructive) criticism, and hopefully, your subscription! If you don’t feel like clicking through, just add  http://feeds2.feedburner.com/WhenIHaveTime directly to your favorite RSS feed reader!

    Check out When I Have Time…now!

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