My American Lemonade

My American Lemonade is my new blog, where I have begun posting excerpts from my upcoming book about my family's immigration ordeal. Check it out, tell your friends. Especially if your friends are literary agents (I need an agent, email atanas@entchev.com).

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Follow me on Twitter @atanas

We're back!

[UPDATE 10/27/2012] Never mind! Chose to start a new blog: "My American Lemonade: When life gives you lemons, write about it."

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The Tenth Cave is back in action. More soon.

To klout or not to klout? The A.T. Rank of social media networks has all the answers

In keeping with the “More wood behind fewer arrows” mantra, I will be reducing my participation in a number of social media networks, effective immediately. Below I share my assessment of the networks I am familiar with, thus hoping to save you time and frustration.

[UPDATE] Oops! I forgot foursquare. This must be because I uninstalled it from my mobile over three months ago.

[UPDATE 2] Added LinkedIn (which I had omitted inadvertently) and foursquare to the table. HT to Bill Dollins for pointing out the LinkedIn omission.

SERVICE	A.T. RANK	WHAT'S GOING ON
Twitter	10	Where it's @
Facebook	8	Where everybody's @
Stellar	7	Useful if you tweak your stream right
LinkedIn	6	Recruiter's heaven, good for BI
Flickr	5	The faded dame of social media
Google+	3	Borrrring!
Pinterest	2	All you need to know about nailcare
Diaspora*	1	Nobody home
Pinwheel	0	Nobody home
foursquare	0	Populating 4sq's database for free
Klout	-1	FreeCreditReport.com for dunces

What really went on in Mountain View

With apologies to Dilbert and Scott Adams.

Tennis nostalgia

I found this image on Diaspora*, where it is being circulated without attribution.

That net is way too high.

Tennis history -- women players carrying wooden racquets, lighting up cigarettes after the set

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Follow me on Twitter @atanas

I solved my iGoogle “problem” – with Netvibes

This past Tuesday I freaked out. Google announced the cancellation of iGoogle – my default customized home page for 5+ years. I was beside myself, and I wasn’t alone. Thousands upon thousands of users were up in arms. Blog posts and articles were written, petitions and Facebook pages were started. Concerned users raised voices, hoping that The Google would see the error in its ways.

No dice, said iGoogle product manager Conrad Lo. "While the transition may be difficult, this is part of our broader goal to focus our efforts and build a better Google.”

So I set out to build a better home page. After briefly considering rolling my own, it wasn’t long before I settled on Netvibes. Netvibes does everything iGoogle does and more. It took me less than an hour to create a free Netvibes account and port most of my iGoogle panels into Netvibes. The transition prompted me to do some cleaning and drop some of the iGoogle components. I also reverted to having Firefox as my default browser.

Nobody and nothing is irreplaceable.

Mega props to James Fee, who was the first to suggest this solution.

Poll: Should I keep putting more eggs in the same basket?

Tired of being the butt of everybody’s jokes, I have decided to finally replace my BlackBerry. But with what?

Until last week, the answer seemed obvious – with an Android phone, what else? But Google’s recent, clearly wrong decision to kill iGoogle gives me pause. What is Google thinking? Where is it headed? Has Google lost its way?

This is not the whine of a child who is about to lose his favorite toy. This is the distress of an adult who’s being driven by Dad the wrong way on a one-way street. It is the agony of having to decide whether it is time to take away Dad’s car keys.

I already have too many eggs in Google’s basket. Should I keep adding more? Let me know what you think.