iPhone

SoCS — Take Note

Fandango6 Comments

For this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, Linda G. Hill has asked us to use the word “note.”

I love listening to music, but please take note, when it comes to reading music, I cannot read a note

And speaking about being unable to read, I cannot read my own handwriting. So I use my Notes app on my iPhone to write myself notes, grocery shopping lists, blog post ideas, reminders, and any other things to take note of.

I have another note taking app on my iPhone. It’s called “Simplenote,” and that is where I write the first drafts of many of my blog posts. Like this one, for instance. Then I copy and paste from Simplenote to Jetpack/WordPress app on my iPhone.

Sunday Poser — Online Time

Fandango3 Comments

For today’s Sunday Poser, Sadje wants to know…

How much time do you give to blogging or other online activities? Do you find it hard to manage the time you spend online?

Two things to consider: (1) I’m retired. (2) I blog exclusively from my iPhone. I turn my iPhone on when I wake up first thing each morning and turn it off when I go to sleep (not to bed, but to sleep) each night. Between waking up and going to sleep, my iPhone is always with me and is always on.

There is an app on my iPhone called “Screentime.” According to my recent Screetime stats, I spend between eight to ten hours a day actively using my iPhone. Of that, between 45 to 55% is spent on Jetpack/WordPress. Of course, that time includes not just writing posts, but responding to comments on my posts and reading and commenting on other bloggers’ posts.

There’s another app on my iPhone called “Battery,” and it measures active and idle screen time. Over the past ten days I averaged nine hours a day of active screen time and about three hours of idle screen time. Jetpack/WordPress accounted for a low of around 36% of that active screen time to a high of 57%.

So, between “Sceentime” and “Battery,” the two apps that keep track of how I’m using my iPhone, blogging is the predominant online activity.

Because I’m retired, I do have the time to spend on Jetpack/WordPress. So, no, I don’t find it hard to manage the time I spend online.

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — March 29th

Fandango9 Comments

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on any day this past year and link to that post in a comment.

How about it? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Flashback Friday post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

This was originally posted on March 29, 2018 on this blog.

Time to Panic

84ECF722-551E-4538-9059-E0A67DAF3E7B


“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Clyde asked his daughter. “You’re acting like a maniac.”

“I’m frantic, Dad,” Lilith said. “I can’t find my iPhone.”

“Where did you leave it?” her father asked.

“If I knew that, Dad, I would be able to find it,” Lilith responded. “Duh!”

“When did you last use it?”

“When I was at Betsy’s last night. We were studying for the history test together.”

“Okay,” Clyde said. “Don’t panic.”

Lilith rolled her eyes. “Right, that’s easy for you to say. My whole life is on that phone.”

“Okay, calm down,” Clyde said. “Let me call your number.” He pulled out his own cellphone, an antique flip phone model, and dialed her number. “It’s ringing.”

But the sound of a ringing phone could not be heard anywhere near where they were standing. Lilith became even more frantic.

“Wait, someone answered,” her father said, hearing a boy’s voice. “Hello? Can you tell me how you’re answering my daughter’s phone?” There was a slight pause and then Clyde said, “I see. Okay, thanks. I’ll let her know.”

“So?” Lilith said, impatiently.

“I thought you said you were studying for your history test at Betsy’s place last night,” Clyde said.

Now it was time for Lilith to panic.

Written for today’s one-word prompt, “frantic.”

SoCS — Behind the Camera

Fandango7 Comments

For this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, Linda G. Hill has given us the word “photograph.”

Ever since I can remember, I loved to take photographs. One of the first presents I asked my parent to get me was a camera. I can’t remember what birthday it was for, but my parents gifted me with a Kodiak Brownie Hawkeye camera.

That got me started and I used to take that camera around with me taking all kinds of photos. Of course, I had to limit my use of the camera because I had to use my own money from allowances and my paper route and odd jobs like shoveling snow, raking leaves, and cutting grass around the neighborhood to pay for film and processing.

When I got older and had a little more discretionary income, I bought myself a Kodak Instamatic camera.

At some point along the way I bought a Polaroid instant camera.

And ultimately graduated to 35mm cameras.

I was excited when digital photography became a thing and I invested in several digital cameras.

But then, when BlackBerry added a camera functionality at around the same time as Apple introduced its iPhone, I discovered I could take digital photos on my handheld devices.

I pretty much retired my digital cameras and used my handheld devices for all my photos. These days, the cameras in my iPhone 15 Pro Max come close to rivaling those from many single-purpose digital cameras.

Between physical photos and digital photos taken over the years, I must have more than 30,000. Of those, I am in an extremely small percentage of them. Because I’m almost always the man behind the camera rather than the man in front of it.

WordPress AI Assistant

Fandango24 Comments

In her January 28 Sunday Poser prompt, Sadje asked about Artificial Intelligence generated text. One of her questions was “Have you tried out the AI assistant in WP?”

My first reaction to that question was, “WordPress has an AI Assistant? Who knew?” I blog exclusively from my iPhone and the Jetpack iPhone app on iOS does not have an AI Assistant block. So I did something I rarely do. I opened up wordpress.com on my Safari browser on my iPhone. Once there, I decided to create a new post using the block editor (because on the iOS app, the block editor is all that’s available).

When I went to create a new post, I was asked to select the block I wanted to start my new post with. I tapped the plus sign and it gave me a bunch of commonly used blocks, but there was no AI Assistant block shown. So I went to the search box and typed “AI Assistant” in it. Lo and behold, here’s what I saw:

So I selected the AI Assistant block and typed this in it:

“Write about using AI for blog posts.”

What appears below is how the WordPress AI Assistant responded to that question I encourage you to read the response and then to share your thoughts in the comments.

What appears below is how the WordPress Al Assistant responded to that question I encourage you to read the response and then to share your thoughts in the comments.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the way blog posts are created and optimized. By leveraging AI tools, bloggers can streamline their writing process, enhance the quality of their content, and improve their overall efficiency.

Al-powered tools can assist with various aspects of blog post creation, from generating topic ideas and conducting research to optimizing content for search engines. For instance, Al can analyze data to identify trending topics and audience interests, helping bloggers choose compelling and relevant subjects to write about.

Moreover, Al can aid in content creation by generating outlines, suggesting relevant sources, and even offering language and style recommendations. This can significantly expedite the writing process while maintaining high standards of quality.

Another key advantage of using Al for blog posts is the ability to optimize content for search engines. Al tools can analyze keywords, suggest relevant terms, and help ensure that blog posts are structured in a way that improves their search engine ranking and visibility.

Overall, Al is transforming the blog writing process, providing writers with invaluable support in generating engaging content, conducting research, and optimizing posts for maximum impact.

So what do you think? Now that you know about the WordPress AI Assistant, do you think you’ll use it?