Matt’s Cuppa

Did you know that I keep a personal blog at Vox.com? My Vox blog tends toward shorter posts that are a little more thoughtful than those I post here at Matt’s Cuppa. Most posts are done via my Palm Centro and are accompanied by a related photo. I can’t speak highly of my skill as a photographer, but at least you can share what inspired me to post.

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Wikileaks Censored Tibet protest videos March 2008, AVI video encoding

WikiLeaks has put together a (large) collection of video footage relating to the protests in Tibet. Some of this footage is of the actual protests and some are interviews with interested persons, including H.H. The Dalai Lama.

In support of an international investigation and because the WikiLeaks servers were receiving so many hits, I posted all of these videos on one of my sites. I will also be uploading the zip archive of all videos and a html index page. If you have five minutes right now, please watch one of the videos and tell someone about it. If you have space, please download any of the videos or the archive and host them on your site. Then tell someone about it.

The Olympic Games are, from their very inception, a celebration of peace. How can we prepare for peace by unleashing violence on our closest neighbors?

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Yep, there’s been some strange looking posts on my blog lately. Why? I like to try new things. Sometimes I try new things and they work the way (I think) they are supposed to. And sometimes they don’t. So, stay with me– it’ll all be grand in the end!

Cheers,

Matt

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I’ve had a GrandCentral number for what seems like forever. I first signed up when they were early in their open beta stage, long before they were purchased by Google. GrandCentral is an awesome service and I’m constantly recommending it to people I talk to. Which is sort of pointless because they closed their beta signups after the purchase by Google… (Although this DLS post tells you how you can get an invite.)

One of the features that I’d totally forgotten about is the WebCall button. With this button, which you can see in the right column under the Search box at www.mattscuppa.com, you call me via my GrandCentral number for free. If you click on the button, it will ask for a name and your phone number. Make sure you enter your own phone number, because once you click the Call Me button, GrandCentral will ring your phone. Once you answer the call, it will ring my phone and connect the call to me.

I’ve added the CallMe button to make it easier to gather feedback about the site. Is there something I should write about? Do you know of a web startup that deserves some attention? Did you just have an amazing cup of tea? Call me and tell me about it.

I’ve added CallMe to make it easier to ask me about writing or consulting gigs, also. Think of it as a shameless plug! If you have inquiries, I go by Central Standard Time, so please plan any calls accordingly.

So, now that it’s there, Call Me and let me know what you think!

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Did you know that you can quickly and easily share a Matt’s Cuppa blog post to your favorite social bookmarking service by clicking the Share This link at the bottom of each post? You can even send a post to any email address by clicking on the Share This link and filling in the “E-mail” form.

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I received the following email from a reader. Although my experience was not the same, Matt’s Cuppa advises that you practice safe surfing by keeping your browser, firewall, and anti-virus software up to date. A good spyware scanner doesn’t hurt, either.

Hey, just thought I’d mention that I went to that Afrigadget site and got spyware warnings and had to quarantine a file and delete. Maybe it was something harmless, but it was worrisome. That happen to you?

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Last weekend I was house sitting for my folks and was up looking for a midnight snack. Trying to find something reasonably healthy, I happened upon a box of Wheat Thins. “Excellent!”, I thought. My parents never were big into snack foods like chips and sodas, but Wheat Thins have been a staple in my house since the dawn of time. I probably ate Wheat Thins before I had teeth. My point is that Wheat Thins always seemed healthy snack. I mean, the box even boasted 0 trans fats and 5 grams of whole grains per serving. But I’ve really been trying to stay away from high fructose corn syrup lately, so I decided to look at the ingredients as I was crunching away. Actually, Wheat Thins score relatively low on the uses-high-fructose-corn-syrup scale. It doesn’t come in until halfway down the list of ingredients. And the ingredients are pretty much common stuff that you can pronounce without struggling. It was the line after the ingredients that made me bite my tongue. “This product contains BHT.” BHT? What the heck is that? And why does it need a special identifier? BHT, it turns out, or butylated hydroxytoluene, is compound commonly used as an antioxidant food additive and is also found in things like cosmetics, jet fuel, and embalming fluids. Embalming fluids?! Are you serious?!? And according to Wikipedia, several other countries have banned its use in food products, Japan since 1958. As in, they’ve been concerned about ingesting it for about 50 years! So, I guess the moral of the story is that you really have to put some research into the foods you eat. You can’t just read the big letters on the front of the box anymore. My lifetime of BHT-laden Wheat Thins may or may not cause some strange health defect in me many years from now. Apparently, the jury’s still out on that. Regardless, even if it means I need to stand in the grocery aisle looking up strange ingredients using my mobile phone’s web browser, I’d rather know about the kinds of stuff my family is ingesting.

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It had to happen eventually. The Matt’s Cuppa blog has finally outgrown its home at Wordpress.com. What began as a learning tool and a distraction to occupy my spare time has turned into a passion, and, I feel, deserves a home of it’s own. You will now find the Matt’s Cuppa blog permanently located at www.mattscuppa.com.

I thought about importing the posts from the existing Wordpress.com blog into the new Matt’s Cuppa blog. Apparently, I thought about it too long, because the export file from the old blog is too large to import via the Wordpress import tool.

However, the more I thought about this, the more I came to view it as an opportunity to refocus and to start fresh. The old Matt’s Cuppa will always be there, and I may refer to it is my posts.

In addition to refocusing, putting Matt’s Cuppa on its own domain allows me to add features that weren’t supported at Wordpress.com. One the the features that I’m particularly excited about is the Disqus blog commenting system. You can read my post about Disqus here.

As I roll out the new Matt’s Cuppa, I would like to hear your thoughts and suggestions. Is there a feature that would make Matt’s Cuppa better? Is there a topic that I should cover or a company that I should contact for an interview? You are welcome to leave your comments or to contact me here.

Thanks for reading the Matt’s Cuppa blog!

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