A little over 10 years ago, on March 24, 2004, I posted the first entry on my LiveJournal blog – what would eventually become JonWestfall.com (I actually mentioned in that post that I was trying to figure out how to show the RSS feed from my LiveJournal blog to the relatively static homepage of JonWestfall.Com). 10 years and counting!
Coloring as An Adult
One of my favorite smartphone photo editing effects is selective color removal. I used to love Camera360 for this, however they removed this feature a few years ago. Since then I’ve been looking for an app that will automatically select color, not one where I need to “paint” the area I want. The latest contender shows promise, although it isn’t perfect. Enjoy some artsy color selected Jon Masterpieces! (PS – this posts title is in reference to the fact that as a child, I was an atrocious color-er)
Nudging
“Nudging” refers to subtly prompting someone toward one choice or course of action. In the Choice Architecture world, it’s seen as a way to help those who need it make better decisions, while not heavy-handed-ly dictating what to do. But when does it go from helpful to annoying? 2 words: Facebook Notifications! Yes, I know my wife has been waiting for me to play Words with Friends…and Songpop… Nudging isn’t going to help – I play by my own rules… In my own time!
[phoneitin]
Blogging: Does frequency count?
Whenever I start a new blog or section of this blog, I tend to post a lot for the first few days and then slowly trail off. From what I’ve seen on the Internet, this is not uncommon. I feel lucky that I haven’t gone a whole year between blog posts (like a few friends I know), but I certainly understand how that happens.
But with the newness comes the worry of overloading the reader (Even as a published author, I sometimes doubt anyone reads my work – if you wish to prove me wrong, use the contact form and I will amend this post to show a real live person read it. But I digress…). This overload problem is why services like Buffer exist. I am beginning to wonder if it matters though – streakiness versus reliability. I follow streaky blogs and regular blogs daily, and while I revel in the reliability of fresh content, there is something special about a friend’s blog being updated periodically. I guess there are pros and cons to both publishing strategies!
[phoneitin]
History
A New Feature: Phoning It In
Increasingly, the smartphone has become the way that we communicate with each other. And so in that vein, I’ve decided to start a new feature on my blog called phoning it in. All posts here are completely composed via my phone. What will you see here? Short, pithy thoughts, poems, jokes, commentary, and anything else (probably not long form).
Enjoy the randomness,
Jon








