Ausbury.com

Category: Technology

  • How To Schedule A Yammer Message For Later Delivery

    Here goes my most geeked out blog post ever.

    This is for Yammer users who want to schedule a Yammer message for posting to their Yammer network at a later time.

    We use this at my company, Intrapromote, for staff announcements on new blog posts set to publish the following day.

    So, you want to schedule a Yam to hit your Yammer network feed at a certain time? Yammer doesn’t have this feature, but here’s how to make it happen.

    What you’re going to do is create an email and schedule it to send to your Yammer network at the time you want it to hit your Yammer network feed. IMPORTANT: You will need Boomerang For Gmail or some other email scheduling program. My instructions below are based on using Boomerang.

    1. In your Yammer Account Settings (Edit Account > Notifications) uncheck the box next to “Require me to confirm my email before it’s posted”

    2. Compose a new email From the email address registered in your Yammer account

    3. In the To field, put [your yammer network name]@yammer.com

    4. In the Subject field, put the subject of your yam or leave blank

    5. In the Body field, enter your Yammer message

    6. Schedule your email to send at the time you want the message to hit your Yammer network. With Boomerang, Click Save Now, then click Send Later, assign your time and click Confirm.

    Your Yammer message will be emailed to Yammer at the time you assigned and hit your Yammer feed about 30 seconds afterwards.

    That’s some serious geeked out tweakage!

  • Budding Video Editor

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd5rGA_6TkE]

  • Block Facebook Ads In Firefox & Safari

    Here at Ausbury Headquarters, we are becoming addicted to Facebook. However, is anyone else really annoyed by the new targeted ads in the left column? How many times a day to I need to be reminded that my abs are non-existent? How many girls in their underwear does my teenager have to see every day?

    My son and I did some research and here’s how to block all the bothersome ads on Facebook. This is quite easy to do if you’re using Firefox – just use the Firefox add-on called Adblock Plus and add a few custom filters.

    How to block Facebook ads within the Firefox browser:

    1. Go to this page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865
    2. Click: Add To Firefox
    3. Wait for Install button to become active then click it.
    4. Restart Firefox.
    5. When Firefox opens, you should see a tab: Add Adblock Plus Filter subscription
    6. If you want to block ads on many other sites, click the button next to EasyList (USA), then click Subscribe.
    7. Under the Tools menu in Firefox, select Adblock Plus Preferences.
    8. Click the Add Filter button.
    9. Copy and paste the following filter: facebook.com#*(social_ad) and click OK.
    10. Repeat steps 7 and 8, then copy and paste the following filter: facebook.com#*(social_ad_advert) and click OK.
    11. Close Firefox, then open it and go to Facebook. Adblock Plus should block all Facebook ads.

    If you haven’t yet ditched Internet Explorer, here is the download link for Firefox:
    http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

    We’re still searching for an easy way to block Facebook ads in Internet Explorer. I’ll keep you posted as we keep looking.

    *** UPDATE December 2, 2009 ***

    Just added a Macbook and have figured out how to block Facebook ads in Safari via a custom CSS file. Here’s how:

    1. Open the TextEdit program.
    2. Create a new file and be sure to click Format > Make Plain Text
    3. Copy and paste this into the new file you just created:

    #ssponsor, .footer_ad, .banner_ad, .social_ad, .ad_capsule, .sidebar_ads, .adcolumn, .admarket_ad, .sidebar_item.sponsor, .emu_sponsor, .home_sponsor { display: none !important; }

    4. Save the file with this file name: custom.css and make sure to click the Use.css button. Put the file somewhere easy to find on your hard drive.
    5. In Safari, click on the Safari menu, then go to Preferences, Advanced, Stylesheet. Select “Other” and choose the custom.css file saved in Step 4 above.
    6. Refresh Facebook and your ads will be gone.

  • Slurp…Is That Saint Peter Over There?

    In my ongoing quest for the world’s best cup of coffee from home, this morning we retired the Bunn MyCafe. May she rest in peace.

    The new gal is the Keurig Platinum Gourmet B70 K-Cup Brewer. After the first cup, I do think we may have found true, Coffee Heaven.

  • Subscribe By Email

    For those of you who have not jumped on the RSS Reader bandwagon, you can now subscribe to my blog via Email. Just click on the image to the right, subscribe, then confirm via email.

  • Why Didn’t I Think Of This?

    Only $1.5 big ones…..

    youboob.jpg

  • What Google Thinks About Me

    I got a kick out of this. I recently decided to say a little bit about who I am over in the right hand column of the blog.

    Now if you search for my last name on Google, here is the search engine result. Check out the text I highlighted in yellow:

    google-doug-ausbury.jpg

    —————-
    Listening to: Ace Frehley – New York Groove

  • News Titling Snafu (MSNBC & Niger Innis)

    Somebody, please tell me how this can possibly happen??? Back in 2005 during the Enron scandal, MSNBC invited conservative Republican Niger Innis on to discuss “The Enron Mess”. Take a look at the major error made by whomever was working the titling:

    msnbc-niger-innis.jpg

    When typically they would be on this like rabid dogs, apparently not a peep was heard from The Revs Jackson and Sharpton. That sure is a head scratcher isn’t it???

    I’ve often wondered if the oft-liberal-leaning MSNBC got a free pass on this and what might have happened had this screw-up happened on Fox News?

  • Outsourcing Customer Service Is A Mistake

    I am completely fed up with 1and1, the company that hosts one of our web sites and email.

    Don’t you hate it when you call customer service or tech support and someone answers with a strong accent and a fake American name?

    These are the same people that when they ask my name and I say, “Doug”, they ask me to spell it. Are you freaking kidding me? Of course, I then have to spell “D-o-u-g” seven times and receive a follow up email later to “D-o-u-g-h”.

    How can companies not understand that this is a major mistake?

    Here is what I entered into the customer service form after a very disappointing experience speaking with 1and1.com’s “technical support”:

    tech-support.jpg

    By the way, if you haven’t seen the episode of 30 Days (great show on FX produced by Morgan Spurlock who made the Supersize Me documentary) called “Outsourced”, I highly recommend it.

  • Word Embryos: Human Verification Word #1

    I’ve noticed more web sites have added the “human verification” process where you, as a human being and not a robot or software program, have to enter letters and/or numbers into a box to verify you are a human being.

    If you’ve ever submitted a site to Google or added a comment on a blog, you know what I’m talking about.

    This process is supposed to create random letters or numbers, but I’m convinced that the randomness is beginning to fade. Just this week I noticed on two occasions that the random characters, like word embryos, are beginning to evolve into the very early stages of word-dom.

    What does this look like to you?

    wordverify1.gif