DayOne Journal

The best way to create content for a blog is to use the Day One app.

I started using DayOne as my primary Blog content creation and planning tool since April 29, 2019. I have found that It's been very easy to organize my content and plan things out.

Previously I was using Trello and Evernote to plan content. I found it hard to get an idea on upcoming

Five Things I Learned Blogging with DayOne App

1. Very easy to add content on my iPhone XS Max or Macintosh computer.
2. Limited formatting capabilities - there's no tables or fancy text features. Which is fine, because I can always touch up the content before posting. DayOne lets me focus on the content first.
3. Change the Date - I can change the date of any Journal entry. This is huge because now I can prep up a future post whenever I want.
4. Multiple Journal Views - I can view the Journal entries by a brief summary, Photo Thumbnails, Locations or by Monthly Calendar. I like the Monthly Calendar because I can easily jump to the blog post of the day.
5. You can have multiple Journals! I created an Idea Journal for when I come up with future blog ideas. I tag the idea based on the blog category. That way in the future if I am looking for a blog idea on a particular topic I can just go here. I can also save related photos and videos - so I don?t have to go searching for them.

Julie Leach

If you're on Twitter, watch out for strange communications from "Julie Leach." This is a scam by a group of people pretending to be someone looking to "give away money" to strangers for absolutely no reason.

Who is Julie Leach?

In October 2015, The real Julie Leach won $310 million in the Powerball Lottery. There are many YouTube videos about her winning and her plans after the winnings.

Impostors are Everywhere

Just look at all the fake accounts created on Twitter. (Twitter closes the accounts as soon as they are notified.)

Check out the current fake accounts about Julie Leach on Twitter.

Don't Follow Back

The scam starts by them following you, and then when you follow back you'll get notified that you have won a giveaway.

So why is this bad?

They will require an activation fee of $500 for your documentation and stamped clearance. To pay this activation fee you need to use a Steam Gift Card or an Amazon Gift Card.

Amazon Gift Cards

Amazon Gift Cards are to pay for Amazon. From Amazon's Gift Card site:

Bootstrap 4

I am in the process of moving this site to use Bootstrap 4. Currently the site is built using Bootstrap 3.

Two major issues that I face with this upgrade:

No more Panels

In Bootstrap 4, panel feature is gone. I have used this just about every place on this site. I?ll be replacing all the Panels with Bootstrap Cards.

This also means that the random panel and random well are now legacy. I?ll replace them with a random card generator.

Legacy Bootstrap Template

I purchased a Bootstrap Template from Creative Market and this DESIGN won?t work under Bootstrap 4. Most likely I?ll come up with my own style.

, For now, the site will use the basic Bootstrap look and feel, I?ll migrate to different design later in July.

Looking Forward To the Migration

I am looking forward to updating the site look and feel and more excited about all the new features in Bootstrap 4. BBEdit makes it easy to do search and replace using Text Filters.

Top 8 Open Topic Posts of 2018

Sunday posts are an open topic day, it's a chance to blog about something that doesn't fit in any of the regular categories.

Top 8 Sunday Post of 2018

You may not agree with these, but these are the post that stands out from all other Sunday posts.

1. Mr. Clean Magic Eraser in a Pool Skimmer - The most popular Blog post of 2018. Lots of people talking about this on various social media channels.
2. Mystery at the Breakers Mansion - Second most popular blog post. Is there writing on the painting? If so, what does it say? Watch the video.
3. Palmco Energy - Still getting calls with them wanting me to switch over.
4. iPhone Xs Plus Video - Check out the video quality of the iPhone XS Max vs the iPhone 6s Plus. Can't wait to see what technology Apple will come up with in a few years.
5. The Dog Treatery - Gluten Free birthday cake for dogs. Yes they do exist.
6. Framingham Commuter Rail Tips - If your new to the Framingham/Worcester line. Here are some tips to help make your travels safe.
7. AAA Trip Tik Booklets - Comparing the 1990s AAA Trip Tik to todays. There's lots of differences and your better off using Waze than look at paper maps.
8. Fixing a Green Pool Quickly - How to quickly fix a Green pool so that its safe to swim in a few days later.

Hidden Treasures

This month?s blog theme is Hidden Treasures. From hidden features in Keyboard Maestro to sites in Boston, you?ll surely learn something new every day.

Example Hidden Feature in Apple Photo.

Did you know you can add GPS search queries to Photos smart groups? Adding GPS filters can help filter images/videos.

Some practical examples:

• Movies taken at Disney World
• Photos taken in Boston
• Photos taken in the state of Florida

In Smart Groups, the way you filter images/movies is by using the Text field. Here?s a sample query:

Hope you enjoy all the cool hidden treasures that are revealed this month!

A-Z Challenge - 2018 - Reflection

This is my third year as part of the A to Z challenge. It was a lot of fun coming up with practical content with a unique letter every day. Obviously, I didn't want to repost old content.

http://www.cryan.com/az/

Things I learned new this year

• Advanced content planning helped a lot. There were a few last minute content changes that had to be made due to the lack of information (or the chosen topic wasn?t interesting.) I started planning in early March.
• The alphabetic letters for Thursday were the same as last year. It was a bit challenging since Thursday is Boston day and this is the third year that I have been doing this.
• I learned a lot about Quaker Ave, and would not have learned anything about it had it not been for the A-Z challenge.
• It was hard to come up with topics for the letters ?G' and ?V? and I had to get a bit creative to blog something interesting. I didn't want to throw up a page just because.
• I certainly wouldn?t do Evernote as a blog topic again. It's not a good topic with a lot of different alphabetic words.
• There were 697 participants this year. Which is a good turnout.

What to do differently in 2019

• Come up with better graphics
• Work with other people to come up with useful topics
• Post early as possible. It was a lot easier to chunk multiple topics than to spend time writing one topic.
• Plan the topics a head of time. Make sure to pick something that has lots of choices.
• Challenge yourself to do something that you wouldn't normally do. For example: Talk to an expert about a topic/idea.

Interesting Facts

Here's the break down of the number of words by first letter in the Unix dictionary (/etc/dict) by number of words:

a	14,537	m	10,709
b	9,675	n	6,098
c	17,406	o	7,219
d	9,946	p	2,2171
e	7,818	q	1,075
f	6,382	r	8,955
g	5,843	s	22,759
h	7,889	t	11,389
i	8,303	u	16,179
j	1,158	v	3,079
k	1,735	w	3,607
l	5,211	x	293
m	10,709	y	532
n	6,098	z	719

Its interesting to see which words have the fewest letters.

What do you think? Did the content in April meet expectations? Any ideas about what topics to write about for next year?

A-Z Challenge - 2018

It's April, and that means that it's time for this years A-Z Challenge.

This is the third year that I have participated in the challenge. Check out all the past A-Z posts on a special page that I have set up.

What is the A-Z Blogging Challenge

The A-Z Blogging Challenge is to have bloggers post something related to the letter of the day. Most bloggers don't post every day so this can hard to balance life and quality blog posts.

In addition, it can be tricky to come up with topics for certain letters - q, x, y, and z.

Topics This Year

Here is the weekly topic schedule:

Monday	QA Monday	Practical Tips/Information with Quality Assurance Testing.
Tuesday	Evernote	Tips and Tricks with the popular Evernote productivity tool
Wednesday	Aruba	We'll be vacationing in Aruba soon, thought it would be good to learn about the country before our trip.
Thursday	Boston	Learn some detail information about sites in Boston, Massachusetts.
Friday	Macintosh	Various tips and tricks that I have learned related to Macintosh Hardware or Software.
Saturday	Internet Tools	Profile of some useful Internet tools to make your job easier.
Weekends	Anything Goes	Open topic! I usually find something interesting to post.

My Personal Challenge

Here's what I am committed to delivering this month:

• Orginal Content - Most of the content is already exclusive to this site. I will continue to seek to have orginal content and also focus on finding challenging topics that people have written about.
• On Time Delivery - All post should be live by 3pm EST.
• Creative Graphics - Come up with some cool graphics that engages people into the topic.

I already have much of the month content mapped out - something different that I haven't done in the past.

Getting Topic Ideas by Letters

Some of the resources where I got topic ideas:

• Boston Public Library - great books on whats going on in Boston.
• Tumblr Search - Easy to search for topics.
• Twitter Posts - people asking questions
• Google Autocomplete - Type in a topic in the search bar and a letter to find interesting ideas.
• Personal Collection - lots of ideas that I gathered over the year.

Geographic Center of the Nation

In 1996, I drove across the country from Concord, Massachusetts to San Jose, California. I accepted a new job and needed to relocate. So I packed the car and headed west.

Before heading on my journey, I did some research about unique places to visit. Driving across the country isn't something that people do all the time, and I figured that I should educate places on my journey.

In my research, I discovered that I was going to be within a few miles of the Geographic Center of the United States of America. I thought it would be neat to discover that place and added it to my list of places to go and see.

Logging My Journey

It turns out that where I thought the Geographic Center of the Nation was located was abandoned. It wasn't anywhere near the experience

In October 1996, I put together a website of my journey. The page was never completed, and I took down the link many years ago. I recently found the pages on some CDs and thought it would be neat to put the site up again.

I fixed up some of the HTML and combine the pages into a single page. I think I had multiple pages back in 1996 because of bandwidth issues of loading a lot of graphics. FYI: The pages were done using Adobe PageMill 2.0 on my Quadra 66AV.

Silly Graphics I created to navigate users through my journey.

Where is the Geographic Center of the United States?

The location that I found might not have been the real Geographic Center of the United States that I thought it was. Turns out that there is an American flag someplace along Old Highway 85.

From a description by wharfrat3 on Road Trippers.com:

We didn't go here, instead, we went to the real center of the country. Go north out of Belle Fourche about 15 miles on US 85. Turn left onto Old Hwy 85 and go about 7.5-8 miles.

On the right, in a file, you'll see an American flag. And 2 USGS markers, one from 1959, the other from 1962, marking the spot. If you're traveling on US 85, it's a nice detour.

A to Z Reflections (2017)

This years A-Z Challenge was a lot easier because I planned my post well in advance. Many posts were ready to go live a few days before the scheduled date.

The A-Z Challenge is the tough challenge because I have a different topic every day. Many sites simply stick to a single topic and post something unique every day.

Some sites I visited this year

• Musings of a Middle-Aged Mom - Read some interesting post from Lisa
• With Love - Read about the Christmas/New Years travels to Canada by Mandy
• My Life in Ecuador - Learn a lot about living in Ecuador

Lessons learned this year

• Plan ahead
• Always think of creative topics around the letter of the day
• There are plenty of good books in the library with helpful ideas
• Don't be afraid to go out for a walk. You may discover something interesting. (That's how I found the Kristen Business Branch topic)
• Challenge yourself! Don't go for the easy topics.
• Learn something new with every post.

Stuck figuring out a topic?

One of the things that help was Google's auto-complete functionality. Simply type your topic in the search and the autocomplete will give you some ideas!

For example, if I was looking for a 'q' word for Boston I would type in:

Full Listening

You can see all the A-Z Challenge posts on a special page that I created.

See You Next Year!

I had a lot of fun with the A-Z Challenge this year. I am looking forward to next year. I'll also check around to see if there are any other Blog Challenges.

January 2017 Blog Schedule

Merry Christmas 2016!

There will be a slight change up to the Blogging schedule in January. Here?s my proposed January 2017 line up:

Monday	Disney	Tips and tricks about various rides and attractions around Walt Disney World
Tuesday	Google Chrome Tips	Some practical tips and tricks with the Chrome browser.
Wednesday	Affinity Templates	Creative design ideas for Affinity Designer or Affinity Photo.
Thursday	Boston	Boston is a historical city, learn some background information on unique sites to visit.
Friday	Macintosh	Various tips and tricks that I have learned about using the Macintosh. Every once in a while I'll profile some productive software or hardware that is very cool.
Saturday	Gluten Free	Personal experiences of eating gluten free with a 5-year-old in New England.
Sunday	Anything Goes	Open topic! I usually find something interesting to post which, I believe, my audience would enjoy.

Framingham on Hiatus

I have decided to retire the Framingham content for a bit as I would like to do some additional research before posting any content. I would expect that regular Framingham posting to resume sometime in February.