Another point for Facebook

AllConsuming Revisited

Have you ever been consumed by a great book, a catchy song or album, an entrancing movie, or had some food and drinks that were phenomenal? Ever find something awesome and you want to share it but your friends aren’t into the same stuff you are? AllConsuming.com is definitely a site you should join and bookmark.

How the creators describe the site: All Consuming means many things to many people. Some folks take it literally, as in “consumerism”. Others take it to mean being “consumed” by a great book, album, movie or delectable food. Think double entendre with a sprinkle of irony.

AllConsuming lets you create an account and add things that have you are consuming, things you have consumed, and things you intend to consume in the future. Basically, it gives you a fun atmosphere to share the things you love and also find things you may come to love.

For those of you who don’t know, I am obsessed with reading. I can get a great book and demolish it in one sitting. However, the problem I sometimes face is finding that amazing book. That’s probably the number one reason I love this site—the book section rocks. I’ve already gone to the Books page and perused the continuously generated page of user suggestions and found two books I’m about to purchase because of it. You better believe as soon as I’m done I’m going to review them on AllConsuming too.

A really cool feature called the “Should List” allows any user to send you a suggestion for an item for you to consume. Whether it’s a close friend or a complete stranger, a person can send you a suggestion.

Another neat feature I didn’t realize was there until after I joined is that AllConsuming is made to interact well with your 43 Things, 43 Places, 43 People or Lists of Bests account if you already have them. “One site fits all.”

AllConsuming has a plethora of diverse members that are out there sharing their tastes with their peers. As soon as you join, go and search through the Books, Music, Movie, Food & Drink, and Other categories to learn about new and exciting things you may have otherwise never heard of.

TheSixtyOne Revisited

Hold up people. You think you know a site that is awesome for finding equally awesome music? Well you don’t. Here it is, thesixtyone.com.

Thesixtyone, is an awesome site that, from the home page you are already in the loop of new artists making new music. Become a member or not, either way you can still browse through pages and pages of new artists and great music.

When you sign up (which you really should) you go in as either a listener, an artist, or a label. I can’t even pretend to be a music artist or a label so I went with what I know.

From the get-go you dive into new artists and their songs.

The neat thing about this site is how you can navigate it according to your own interests. You can go to Explore or Popular. Popular is my favorite because it has the option of Moods. I wish more sites had this option because sometimes you don’t know exactly what you want, you just know what you are in the mood for.

Another cool thing about thesixtyone, is the Quests part. By completing the Main Quests and the Daily Quests you get exposed to different kinds of music and gain reputation points.

If you have an account you can personalize your own playlists off of the songs you find and like. You can also follow other users, whether they are artists or listeners to see what’s up.

Another point of interest that thesixtyone has, is that while on each artist’s page, little tidbits of info pop up and once clicking on them you can learn more about the person or band. It’s pretty nifty if I do say so myself.

Overall thesixtyone.com is musically randomized awesomeness. Not only is the site full of great new artists but it also is an aesthetically pleasing one at that.

Don’t follow the crowd, better yet, beat the crowd to the punch. Go to thesixtyone.com and see what it’s all about.

LineforHeaven.com Revisited

“Am I going to Heaven?” ”Religion can be fun!”

Want to save your “soul” and become closer to “God?”

Too many “quotes?”

LineforHeaven.com.

LineforHeaven is a social networking site that, surprisinly (or maybe not), many people take part in. Their About page assures you that religion can be fun and any religion is welcome. The concept of this site is for you to save your “soul” and reserve your place in “Heaven” by earning karma points. You can play games, “Bless” people, and interact with your fellow members.

Normally I wouldn’t copy/paste such a big list from their About page but who am I to stand in the way of your salvation? This is a list of a member’s benefits:

• Save your “Soul” and commemorate your passage into “Heaven” with eternal life online as an “Angel”. 
• Meet and talk with like-minded people on your spiritual journey in a fun, light-hearted, non-hostile environment. 
• Be able to bless others, while visiting a “Soul” or playing the Blessing Game, and get blessed in return. 
• Cleanse your “Soul” and be forgiven for your sins. 
• Feel good about yourself by spreading the good Karma, donating/tithing, and supporting worthy social causes. 
• Compare and track your inner worth with Karma Points. 
• Be a part of the history-making, Earth-shattering social gathering. 
• Learn more about religion and religious tolerance. 
• Promote yourself and your work, and get noticed now before LineForHeaven becomes too crowded like MySpace. 

I have to say, I do love how ballsy LineForHeaven is. They are going big and letting you know it.

However my favorite thing about the About AND the site itself is how you achieve getting into “Heaven.” I will copy/paste again because you just can’t make this stuff up.
In Heaven, the most worthy can earn a position next to God. Every Sunday (“Judgment Day”) at 7 PM PST, the first person in Line for Heaven will become an “Angel”, inducted into Heaven, and One Degree from God.
Users who have acquired the most Karma Points on a daily basis will be allowed to touch Heaven.

LineForHeaven.com’s creators are either slightly insane or have a great sense of humor. Either way the site isn’t half bad. I mean, you can play games that forgive you of sin and saving your soul has never been easier. You certainly can’t say the same for Facebook or Myspace.

43Things.com Revisited

Man have I got a crush on this new site. CouchSurfing.org may have inspired me to travel, but 43Things.com has inspired me to do everything else.



43Things is a site that allows people to share their goals, their progress on said goals, and to cheer others on with their own little warfares. This concept is simple, but muchos effective. There’s just something empowering about posting your hopeful life goals, whether big or small, on a site where others can see it and say “go for gold!”

You create your account and get started right away. Make your list of goals you want to achieve and see how many people have made the same goal. You can also make a resolution and have it remind you every month, every three months, or next year that THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED TO DO.

Man have I got a crush on this new site. CouchSurfing.org may have inspired me to travel, but 43Things.com has inspired me to do everything else.



43Things is a site that allows people to share their goals, their progress on said goals, and to cheer others on with their own little warfares. This concept is simple, but muchos effective. There’s just something empowering about posting your hopeful life goals, whether big or small, on a site where others can see it and say “go for gold!”

You create your account and get started right away. Make your list of goals you want to achieve and see how many people have made the same goal. You can also make a resolution and have it remind you every month, every three months, or next year that THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED TO DO.

43Things is inspiring. A must do.

Lusting after Lists

I started Social Spaz's Tumblr as a place to review social media sites and now I'm revisiting a few of my favorites.

For: People who dig lists

Lists are things your mom makes before she goes to the grocery store. ListGeeks.com are lists that everyone else makes that put your mom’s to shame.

Let’s be real, a good majority of people who use more than the top tier social media sites are, in some form, geeks at heart. Once upon a time this may have been a description looked down upon by society, but now being geeky can be a glorification of sorts. ListGeeks.com may have said description in it, but don’t let it throw you. ListGeeks is clever and fun.

ListGeeks.com is all about creating, sharing, and comparing lists made by you and other members.

Okay, let me go ahead and stop that inner voice from saying, “Why would a website about lists be interesting?” Why would posting pictures and reading statuses of people you don’t really care about keep you enticed for hours on end? Because, with people come diversity and the people on ListGeeks come up with some pretty interesting lists.

I’m going to list you the cool features:

1. You can create any kind of list you want that can be seen by everyone on Most Recent Lists.

2. ListGeeks gives you two numbers on each list. The first number represents the people you are following (yes, you can follow people on ListGeeks) who have made their own version of the list you are looking at. The second number is the total number of people who have created a version of the list. I think this feature if pretty nifty and after browsing through most recent lists I saw the “Zombie Apocalypse To-Do List” and made my own version of it. There were four more version on the site.

3. You can browse the Most Popular Lists, these lists are usually pretty fun.

4. According to the About page, the creators (based in Berlin, Hamburg and NYC) are saying that ListGeeks.com is currently in beta. They are asking their users to let them know if anything messes up or if they have any feedback to make the site better. This is exciting for me for the fact that, since it is in beta, it can only get better. (Please note that I wanted you to read “beta” and “better” as “betta” to be funny.)

All-in-all, I really enjoy ListGeeks. It’s addictive and makes me want to make lists so awesome that people will create alternate versions of them. So if you have an affinity for being clever or if you just want to make a legitimate list about places you hope to visit one day or your favorite songs, ListGeeks is the place.

http://listgeeks.com/socialspaz

PayPal say wha?! conclusion

For those of you who read the troubles that Regresty.com were having (see this a blog) read the conclusion to the fiasco at Registry's blog post- Paypal Update.

Mini Post!

Happy belated Thanksgiving and happy Black Friday!

I decided that I would give myself Thanksgiving--Monday off as a mini vacation, because I am about to go into overtime with Social Spaz! So this mini post is just a way to let everyone know I haven't forgotten about the blog!

What to expect in the future:

• Social Spaz is moving! (New office, so excited!)
• The website & blog are getting a makeover!
• Specials and great deals will be offered!
• An event party is in the makings!
• Theme Blog Month is coming!

More information will come shortly! (So many exclamation marks!!!)

Promotional Things!

Hey guys,

Here are a few designs that Social Spaz has spit out! I hope you enjoy!

Stay tuned for a weekend blog event!

Guest Blog: Facing Facebook at 50

I am happy to announce the first guest blog! It is a wonderfully written article!

Guest Blogger: BA Spears

I’m 50. For my generation, social media started with the junior high “Slam Book,” where we wrote supposedly anonymous but always identifiable comments about our peers, ranging from genuine compliments to cruel attacks. We then graduated to phone conversations in which a group of giggling girls on extensions throughout the home of some accommodating parent chatted with a group of pimpled pubescent boys gathered around one phone in some young man’s basement for the five minutes that the boys feigned interest in the conversation. Eventually, media became the excuse for social: a gathering in someone’s den to watch a Movie of the Week on Saturday night, where the evening’s theme was chatting, flirting and sneaking kisses between the host mom’s infrequent trips to the room to refill sodas or popcorn bowls.

In the ’70s and ‘80s, the life of parents and the lives of their children were almost completely separate, even when they lived under the same roof: parents were not part of their children’s social circle until long after the children grew up, married, and began attending some of the same social events as parents. Family life and social lives were strangely divided, and I would not have dreamed of sharing even mundane details of my life and my friends’ lives with my parents.

My generation, rejecting the decision of our parents to remain distant, and perhaps feeling a wistful desire for greater generational interaction within the family, changed that formula when becoming parents. We attended our children’s events, we stayed in the room during their parties, we eagerly volunteered to chaperone events so that we could be on site, in the midst, part of the fun. We did not want to miss our children’s lives! And in doing so, we earned the name “helicopter parents,” because we hover around our children, watching them, protecting them, and perhaps not giving them the space required to grow up.

Because we are so deeply engaged in our children’s lives, their departure from home to attend college, enter the military, or take a job in another area, brings a grief so deep it is akin to death. Our relationship to our children has become defined by our presence in their day-to-day affairs. Enter Facebook! Texting! Twitter! YouTube! Social media now fills the gap created by their physical absence and gives us a new type of relationship with our children that we never dreamed existed.

My daughter left for college and soon afterward said to me (apparently feeling no guilt or concern about this comment at all!): “Mom, I don’t always have time to answer your calls. Just text me, and when I have time, I’ll text you back.” After learning to text – a challenge for middle-aged eyes and fingers – I began to text, and soon, we had developed a pattern of communication that at least assured me she was alive and well. When I began to lament that the texts were nice but that I’d really like to see her face, she responded (again, with no trace of guilt or concern!), “You need to get on Facebook. I post pics and comments there almost every day, and you’ll know what I’m doing, where I am, who I’m with, and you’ll be able to see me in my pictures.” Really? That’s how she wanted to communicate with her mother? But in desperation, I struggled through what is, I’m sure, a simple process to set up a Facebook page.

True to her word, my daughter was my first Facebook friend. And that’s when it truly happened: we became friends in a way we’d never been friends before. We still retained our warm mother-daughter bond; we still had occasional late-night phone chats; we still wrote old-fashioned snail mail letters (she knows her mom is old school, after all!). I remained a helicopter parent, but Facebook was my helicopter, allowing me to hover on the fringe of her life at most times but make an appearance when needed, satisfying her need for space to grow while satisfying my need to be informed. I began to meet her friends, experience aspects of her social life, see her friends’ comments and jokes, watch YouTube videos of my daughter and her friends. I felt engaged in her life again but she felt free to live that life as the young adult she had become.

Eventually, as I grew more comfortable with forming relationships through social media and having access to her friends’ comments, thoughts and pictures, I became brave enough to actually respond to their comments, thinking to myself that I might be making a huge mistake. These cool young college coeds might be offended by a gray-haired mom’s intrusion on their lives.

Their response? They sent me Facebook friend requests, too! And as they embraced me, I embraced them, getting to know a whole new group of bright young minds who are excited about politics, the economy, the environment! Of course, I remain cautious. I comment only when I believe I can add humor, insight, or an encouraging word. When I see things of which I disapprove (and that does happen!), I remain largely silent or I send a private message of encouragement. I am not the Facebook police, and I am not there to judge their lives. But I am so grateful to be a part of this tremendous social media phenomenon that has enriched my life so much!

Facing Facebook and other forms of social media as a means of maintaining a relationship with my child seemed strange, foreign, and scary to a little old lady who still found email to be somewhat challenging. I have parked my hovering helicopter and walked right through the door, becoming fully engaged in my adult daughter’s social media life. I begin and end each day logging in. Her posts appear on my page, and I see quickly that she is happy. Then I can go on about my business of Facebooking with my own middle-aged friends, some of whom wrote in my Slam Books, giggled on the phone with me at slumber parties, and gathered at my house to not watch movies. Facebook has reconnected me with those friends, introduced me to new friends, and reinvented my family relationships. And my life would be much bleaker without it.

Guest Bloggers Wanted!

I would love to have some guest bloggers write for Social Spaz!

DIY Project: Paint Samples (The Beginning)

I went to Lowes today and was very creepy. I ended up getting about 50 paint samples.

Then, after hurrying out, I made a stop at Hobby Lobby to look for a frame for my paint samples wall art. Now, you could purchase almost any frame for this project, but at the moment I am on somewhat of a budget and stuck with an 11x14 wooden wall frame that was about $6. When I do another paint sample project I will buy a larger frame for an intense masterpiece.

This is my update! So far this project has only cost $6!

DIY Projects: What to expect

For those who don't know me, I have an utter addiction to HGTV and in consequence DIY projects. Young House Love is a site I visit frequently (and you should too!) and they inspired me, along with Pinterest, to start up on some projects that I've been wanting to try.

For this next month expect my own version of these:

These are paint samples! You can make awesome wall art for practically free (buy the pins or glue depending on where you put them) and you can let them free stand or have them framed!

So pretty and so easy! Used or new you can make these decorations no problem! 

Don't throw away those bags of unused color pencils! Make a design out of them! Frame them!

Easy to make, easy to decorate yet beautiful!

Don't throw away your used crayons either! This is an awesome idea for a canvas with a big splash of color. New or used crayons would work!

So those are the things I will be doing while business is still keeping me really busy. Once everything settles down I will go bigger! I'll keep you updated on my hopefully successful attempts!

If I could use my mind to explode things...

...it would be this line of code: <ul class="sub" style="width:185px;">

I can only work for one of my clients after 10 p.m. (this is the only time their schedule allows it) and so when everyone starts dropping off to bed I'm still awake and just getting into the swing of things. Tonight (rather LAST night) I started working on their website in Wordpress.

Now, I have the biggest love/hate relationship with Wordpress. It can produce some of the most beautiful and efficient websites and yet it is as temperamental as a hormonal teenager--you say/type one wrong thing and it's game over.

But half of my clients are Wordpressers so I suck it up and make it work.
However, tonight I about had a meltdown. Around 2 a.m. I decided to call it quits and turn in, so I went ahead and made my back ups but then started to do one last thing.

I should have walked away!

I was editing some html when my computer crashed! Initially I wasn't upset, just annoyed. I had made backups and hadn't saved the edited code yet. However, I was wrong! Somehow my computer refused to save my back up (yes, I'm passing the blame on to the computer) and DID save the code. The code that uncompleted was wrong! At this point I was nervous but wrote the rest of the code anyways, but once completed it still wasn't working!

So from around 2:30 a.m. to 4:10 a.m. I edited, deleted, rewrote and created so many different forms of html to solve my problem. Finally, tucked away in the back of my brain, I pulled <ul class="sub" style="width:185px;"> after realizing that it was missing. Problem = Fixed.

The moral of the story? Back it up! And CHECK to make sure it is!

McDonalds gets its own channel: McTV

Do you love McDonalds? Do you often go there to eat off of the dollar menu or grab one of their amazing sweet teas? Do you find yourself pining for its greasy goodness when you're stuck eating vegetables or fruit? Have you ever been awake in bed and thought "Man, I wish I could have me some McDonalds?"

Well now your dreams have been realized.

Soon you will be able to get your McDonalds' fill by watching its very own TV channel called McTV.

"The intention is to catch and engage the customer, and then enhance their experience," says an executive behind the project. And let me tell you, I will watch it at least once to see what's going on.

McDonalds' exclusive channel will have corporate-approved content like entertainment news, advertising and spots on local moms and athletes. Does anyone else find this strange?

McTV has been testing in Los Angeles, San Diego and Las Vegas so far and it is estimated to reach 18 million to 20 million viewers there. This channel will be in about 800 California restaurants and could become a nationwide gig. 

So if you love you some McDonalds, fret not-- McTV could be coming to a TV near you.

Link of the week!

My favorite link of this week has to be this baby here.
I laughed hard.