NorthStarNerd.Org

Nordic Spirit Ski Race

Like a bad dream, Ski Cam man is back in 2011!

The Duluth Cross-Country Ski Club hosted a great race today, which included a 25k classic. I hope you enjoy some photos I took with my Go Pro Digital Camera. I wear the camera on my back as I compete. The camera takes a photo every 30 seconds.

Today's race was brutal ... 2,000 feet up, and 2,000 feet down. In short, it was a great course!

If you would like to view and download photos (no charge), link to my Picasa Album, which includes additional photos to the ones included below. However the show given below includes animation and music. Enjoy! (other Nordic Skiing and Cycling Posts)

Nordic Spirit on PhotoPeach

Results: My Test of LinkedIn Ads

I've spent 1/2 of my budget, and the numbers are stabilized such that I can report results. The basic question is, do LinkedIn Member Ads work? My answer, a qualified "yes". Very early on in my experiment I was contacted by an individual who had clicked through to my site, NorthstarNerd.Org. This person was kind enough to let me know my url was misspelled. This example and others lead me to believe I have made contact with viewers, and enhanced knowledge of my site. However, if you look at either of the images given below, I think you'll note two things: (click images to view expanded)

1. My two advertisements that received clickthroughs were somewhat "off the wall" in terms of the headlines / message. My top ad receiving clicks was:
   • Headline: Dr. Seuss Would be Proud!
   • Copy: I do not like Android here or there, I do not like Android anywhere?!
   • Link: http://www.NorthstarNerd.org/
2. Look at the placement of where LinkedIn advertisements appear on one's profile. The ads are quite easy to ignore. Perhaps this is why it took the more unusual "copy" to attract a click. You decide, and then determine what might work for your campaign. However, remember that you never pay for viewing, just clickthroughs.

Original blog post defining the experiment.

Spot Protests, But House Sells!

Spot the Bassamation decided to protest her master's attempt to sell the family homestead. Fearing the couple coming this past Wednesday for a viewing might be serious, she used her famous dog powers to try and stop the potential sale! You see, when her master arrived home to prepare the house for the viewing, he discovered Spot had been happily chewing up the Northstar Nerd's sweat socks. Unfortunately, yours truly could only find one sock. Where could our family dog have placed the other sock in an attempt to gross out the potential buyers? The sock could not be found; had it been eaten?

Well ... the house did sell. Thus we end our foray into the world of real estate. It took four months. If you expand the Edina Realty stats given below, you'll understand a bit of the process. I still wish that Edina could have given us some benchmarks to compare our stats against. In this slow real estate market, it seems like we did well, but we don't really know. Activity (i.e. viewings) was always pretty good, and we even had people look at our home during one of the worst snow storms in years; and we also had activity over both Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks which totally surprised me.

It would have helped us (i.e. the sellers) if we could have known if our activity level was good, bad or ugly. I like data, but in the end we had nothing to compare our stats against (i.e. averages of similar priced homes in the western suburbs).

Here is a recap. Our home was on the market for four months. We received two offers, but turned down the first offer which came only weeks into the process. The price offered was too low. In the end the final offer we accepted was fair. Our original asking price was $249,900, and in the end after two price drops ($10k early on, $5k after New Years) we came to terms ($230k plus our help with some of the buyers closing costs).

Now time to find a new place to live! (i.e. our permanent home is now Duluth, but we want a small place down here in the Twin Cities).

And the promised photos ... first the famous sock, and Spot discussing how to stop the sale with my grandson ... followed by our stats. (the missing sock was eventually found ... equally chewed)

Click upon any image to view expanded!

Our stats ... 

 

 

Support the Northstar Nerd!

I need your support ... one tiny click. Become my fan on Facebook!

As some of you know, I've been blogging for almost ten years. During that time I've never taken a dime for my efforts, or hosted any advertisements on NorthstarNerd.Org. My goal is to provide value in my knowledge domain by reviewing web content with a technology focus. A few of my efforts have included:

• Creating and Running the Collaboration Council
• Engineering College Search 2.0
• Engineering Learning Portal
• Lego Robotics
• Run for China (3 schools built)
• Ski Cam Man

And my latest effort, Android for the Business User.

Please let me know you support my efforts, and the fact that knowledge should be free. See the right hand margin immediately to the right of this post ... click and become a Facebook Fan! Thank you.

Android Apps Development

In my post, Practical Android for the Business User, I promised a follow-up on Android development (the SDK or software development kit). As a preface to the rest of my post you need to know that I HATE syntax. Luckily for me Google has created two Android development environments. The first environment which is not reviewed in this post involves learning specific code in conjunction with JAVA.

Being a five year veteran coach of Lego Robotics, I was thrilled to discover Google's other Android development environment ... which is a LabView / Lego Robotics Programming like visual building blocks development environment, the App Inventor:

• App Inventor from Google Labs
• Instruction on how to build your first app

I found the service straight forward, and with a little bit of effort, not difficult to learn. Here is a short video overview: (access much more extensive training and videos)

Remember, you don't need to be a registered Android Marketplace developer to install your own apps. There are Android apps like APKatcher which allow you to email your completed app ready for installation to your Android smartphone. (see screenshot given below)

Finally, here is a screenshot of the actual App Inventor environment.

(click to maximize)

Although not strictly related to actual development in Android using Google, I did discover that lots of people (including me) had difficulty getting the ADB service to initially run (a necessary software installation step). Here is some key information which I discovered (my thanks to ksfrogman who posted this information on AndroidForum.Com):

• Copy the adb, AdbWinApi.dll, and AdbWinUsbApi.dll files from your SDK platform tools folder to your tools folder
• If your smartphone does not have default Google USB drivers, an approach like the one I used for my HTC Incredible smartphone may work for installing drivers.

Good luck! Have fun!