This is my old site, and I have since changed servers. If you wish, feel free to browse around, all but the comments from the posts were able to be transferred. You can visit my new site at Bouncerman.com. Stop by and enjoy!

I do a lot on Twitter, especially when you consider that the first people to know about updates here on Bouncerman.com are those who follow me on Twitter. Does this mean that you HAVE to join twitter? Not at all, I just use twitter because there are quite a few people who want updates as soon as they happen, and twitter clients or text messages can even be used on most phones. In case you are interested though, after joining twitter, in the top right area click “Find People”, then type Bouncerman in your search.

Anyway I just wanted to take the time to share this with those that do not use twitter (since it has been a common question)

This was my pup Cinnamon about 5 months ago, shortly after waking me up…

And this picture was taken 2 days ago shortly after waking me up. Wait… is there a trend here…..???

Hard to believe that this is the same dog!

Questions that you would like answered, comments or suggestions regarding the site itself, email me at Bouncerman@Bouncerman.com

Remember, view these pictures in all their glory and all the others on this site, even some that have never been posted here can be seen at memories.myphotoalbum.com

Playing football this year for Rural Retreat Indian’s Black Team, Justin finds himself playing his now in his fourth year.

We will be receiving the season schedule soon, but for now, it is practice, practice, practice.

Remember, view these pictures in all their glory and all the others on this site, even some that have never been posted here can be seen at memories.myphotoalbum.com

Questions that you would like answered, comments or suggestions regarding the site itself, email me at Bouncerman@Bouncerman.com

I figured since I have been on a tech streak, I would end this series with a listing of applications that I use the most. In Taking The Inbox Bull By The Horns and Keeping A Balanced Online Social Presence you had a peek into some of the tools that I use regularly, in my everyday life.

Microsoft Outlook 2007 (Tasks, Calendar, Twittering, Email, Contact Management)

I am pretty sure that most people have heard of this, and for as many years as Microsoft Office has been around, just about everyone has tried it at some point. To be truthful, were it not for needing it for college, I would have never gotten it. The last version of Office that I had gotten was 2003, and that was because I worked with a company that receives pretty decent discounts on Microsoft products. I bought it simply because it had a price tag that made it to where I couldn’t really go wrong. I was never all that impressed with the software, but because I usually used a freeware alternative (Thunderbird) to MS Office, it helped me practice while at home.

I then started college, and had to get Office 2007. While it still is not perfect in my book, it has greatly improved over the years. I like the look and the overall function much better now. I didn’t want software that I had to buy anyway go to waste, and I found some plug-in software that works quite well with it. The first is called Xobni. Xobni is a search tool that adds a lot of interesting functionality. The second plug-in I use is TwInbox. This basically gives me the ability to send and receive Twitter through MS Outlook. The third plug-in I use is Outlook On The Desktop. This software allows me to run Outlook Calendar on my desktop, so I always have my schedule at a quick glance. The last Outlook plug-in I use is YPOPs. So far this is the software that has worked the least. This software is for bringing my Yahoo inbox over to Outlook. This is possible to do in normal circumstances, but only if you pay for premium service. So far this software has crashed almost every time, but I will continue using it until I find a better way to do Yahoo mail in Outlook.

Microsoft One Note (Note Taking, Research, Information Gathering)

When I first read the description, I never figured that I would actually use it, since I rarely really take notes on anything. Boy was I wrong, this has become one piece of software that I have found that comes in handy for many tasks. If I had to choose just one Microsoft product, this would be the one I would always keep. Right now, I am also trying a freeware alternative (Evernote). So far it is quite similar, but we will see how it all works out.

Windows Live Writer (Blogging)

While it not be as all inclusive as some of the aptly named “Pro Blogging Software” it really fits the bill for me. I wanted a stand alone blogger, and something that had neater html coding than say Microsoft word. I needed my Asus EEE 1000HA to be able to run all the other programs, as well as blog, all while being mobile, oh … and not be a memory hog. Wow that is a really tall order to fill, but MS Live writer does it on here all the time, and it is freeware! I know, I am a taskmaster, but if it is going to be on my computer, it needs to be good at more than just one thing.  The plug-ins that I use most on it are: Tags – Used to insert delicious tags at the top of each post. Text Template – Used to add text that I use a lot of, such as the messages I add to every post. Twitter Notify – as apposed to logging in to twitter to tweet a message about the new post, when I publish the post, this automatically creates a tweet telling everyone who follows me that there is a new post here on Bouncerman.com, as well as a link to the new post.

Google Chrome (Browser)

I used to use Firefox as my main browser, but for some reason my Asus didn’t play well with it. Internet explorer did ok (normally) but when I switched to IE8 it was never the same. With Chrome, I easily blaze a path on the internet.

Image and Video Editing

At the moment I am still experimenting until I find something that I really like.

Maintenance

A well maintained computer causes fewer headaches, which is good, because I don’t like buying Tylenol. I personally use CCleaner to clean things up, and Smart Defrag for defragging when it needs it. Yes, Windows has utilities built in already, but in my opinion, the utilities I use work much more efficiently.

Leave comments if you know something that may work better, or just want to share what you use!

Questions that you would like answered, comments or suggestions regarding the site itself, email me at Bouncerman@Bouncerman.com

On August 8th, I had the chance to go to a reunion, that I had been looking forward to for a really long time. The BCA Reunion went off without any real hitches. It was known that there were a few typos here and there, but frankly, with the time, and the amount of people involved; it seemed to go perfectly.

As for me, even though it was something that I had been wanting; I strangely found myself slightly nervous, and not looking forward to it. I was beginning to wonder what was going on with me! It wasn’t until early the day of the reunion, that I realized why I had been feeling the way I had.

Since becoming an adult, and being a part of the worlds workforce, I have seen people that I knew back in school; that had changed so much, that I really didn’t know them any more. I felt really close with some of the people I went to school with, and because of that I wanted to see them; but there was a part Of me that still feared what I thought times changes may have brought.

After getting there and mingling, I found out that there were a lot of people there that I didn’t remember, and several that didn’t remember me. It was no big deal, because most of the people there hadn’t seen the others in almost 20 years. A lot changes in that amount of time, but I finally began seeing people that I recognized. After talking to them all, I realized that they have matured in their own way, created families and in general had their own life; but the people I had been thinking about over the years haven’t really changed.

I am looking forward to getting together with them again, just to have some fun outside of the reunion. We will see what happens!

** I want to thank Gretchen and Brian for inviting me to the party we went to afterward, I had a great time!

Remember, view these pictures in all their glory and all the others on this site, even some that have never been posted here can be seen at memories.myphotoalbum.com

Questions that you would like answered, comments or suggestions regarding the site itself, email me at Bouncerman@Bouncerman.com

  Until  a couple of years ago, I never really had a social presence online. It all started with MySpace, and soon a flurry of other social sites had my face and information plastered all over it. Back then, there was really no plan, it was just all about keeping up with a few people I knew.

Within months, I found myself wallowing in what seemed like an endless sea of chaos. Between application invitations, comments, messages, stickers and a gamut of other items received; there was just no way that I could keep up! At one point I decided to just forget about some of the accounts, using only MySpace and My Yearbook.

Later I found myself checking emails, and noticing that there were messages from people on the sites I chose to ignore that refused to use MySpace or My Yearbook. I can understand why they would not want to, because I had the same types of issues. Within minutes I was back on all of the sites, trying to update profiles, writing yet another bio area, and just hating the fact that I was having to spend several hours keeping up with people because I had to wade through so many sites.

The last straws were Twitter and FaceBook. After joining Twitter, I felt like it was a waste because it was just another status message, and FaceBook seemed to be an almost carbon copy of MySpace. The only strong point for FaceBook was the fact that a majority of friends from school are on there, but I had not solved any of my problems; and in the end I contributed more time (that I don’t really have to spend) to social networks. The end result being too many networks, too little time.

Fast forward to present time, where the balance in my online social presence still isn’t’ perfect, but is in fact a lot less time consuming. I now have Bouncerman.com, which is where I post all of the information about me, blog and add media. The old way of posting about new information on this site was to go in and leave a blog or status message on each social site individually. This job is handled in part now by the ability of some of the social sites to connect to Twitter, FaceBook or LinkedIn. By linking them in this way, it creates a chain so that when I post a status message on one of them, all of the others receive the same message and then post it. Of course, as with anything in life; there isn’t always reciprocity. Some social sites still do not have this function, so the first tool  I enlist the help of ping.fm. On this site, you are given many options for posting, as several social sites are listed here that one might send their posting to.

The second such tool that I found is Dial2Do. While I do not use this method very often, I feel that this service is definitely worth mention. I personally prefer to do my blog and status work on the computer, but Dial2Do extends the option of doing some of the same things on your cell phone. Check them out, you may find a use for them.

There are still a few social networks that are not covered by these nifty tools, so there are still a few sites that I need to blog on manually, but in the end; I am able to put wore work into the content, less time on juggling and balancing.

So how do you keep a balanced social presence? Do you have some tips you would like to share?

As a side note, I want to thank the model for using her ability to keep her balance, for a really great shot. I also want to thank my crew for helping to make it all possible.

Questions that you would like answered, comments or suggestions regarding the site itself, email me at Bouncerman@Bouncerman.com

Remember, view these pictures in all their glory and all the others on this site, even some that have never been posted here can be seen at memories.myphotoalbum.com.