What is it? Basically, 750words.com presents a blank canvas for you to do a daily mind dump. It it a journal? A blog? A free-association experiment? Yes.

Everybody uses it differently, and their use often varies day to day. Some people sit down, start typing, and don’t stop until they have 750 words with no plan or structure whatsoever. Some people use it as more of a personal journal.

My entries tend to be a cross between a journal and a mind dump. I usually type out what’s at the forefront of my mind that day, and in so doing, I usually get a better grasp on it myself, and it becomes easier to articulate should I talk or write about it later. I don’t worry about making sure everything makes sense or ties together. I’m just trying to get it out of my head and onto (digital) paper.

Though you can technically go back and read everything you’ve written in the past, that’s not the point. It’s not meant to replace journaling or blogging, but rather to supplement it.

Be forewarned; it’s a fairy significant investment. 750 words is probably more than you’d expect – this blog past is just under 500. It usually takes me anywhere from 12 to 20 minutes to get to that 750th.

The rewards are also significant, though. While the system looks very basic at first glance, it has some fairly complex analytics that break down what you wrote, and give you some great feedback. On top of telling you how long it took you for to write 750 words, and how many words you typed for each minute you were typing, it also gives you a pie chart of what you’re concerned about (abstractly speaking), and how you’re feeling.

Click for a closer look into my subconscious

It also allows you to see how all of that data has fluctuated over time, your most commonly used words, your fastest time to 750 words, etc. You even earn badges for meeting different criteria like writing for 5 days in a row, getting to 750 words in less than 15 minutes, etc. Those little rewards make this little app stand out as something unique and worth investing into.

Even if you don’t do any regular writing (ie blogging, journaling), I highly recommend trying 750words out. The impact that it’s had on me isn’t exactly massive, but I’ve definitely had a clearer mind the past three weeks. You’d be amazed at how therapeutic it is to just vent anything and everything once each day.

And how awesome you feel when you get the Phoenix badge.

You need to get a Gravatar of your own.

Gravatars (or Globally Recognized Avatars) are exactly what their extremely vague name implies. They are avatars or profile pictures that work across multiple blogs; and they make them more beautiful. To put it simply, you create a Gravatar account, tie it your email address, and upload an image of yourself. From that point on, anytime you leave a comment on a Gravatar-enabled blog using that email address, your comment will have your beautiful image instead of the boring generic one. It’ll even roll back out to any comment you’ve posted in the past.

“So just how many blogs are ‘Gravatar-enabled’?”, you ask? Well, Gravatars have been integrated into nearly every major blogging platform (WordPress, Blogger, Movable Type, etc); they’re ubiquitous on the web. There’s a very good chance that every single blog you frequent supports Gravatars.

Now that you’re completely convinced of the merits and importance of getting a Gravatar, make it happen, son! Go to http://en.gravatar.com/, and either create a new (and free) account, or tie it to the (also free) WordPress.com account that you likely already have. Convenient! All that’s left is to walk through their extraordinarily easy process of adding email addresses and images, and you’re good to go. Simple! The whole process takes less than five minutes. Speedy!

By doing so, you’ll be doing humanity as a whole a favor. You and your comments look more legit, Bloggers’ comment listings look more fresh and dynamic, and Everyone Else gets a better comment-reading experience. Humanity as a whole.

So, once again, I beg you. Please get a Gravatar. Speaking on the behalf of bloggers everywhere, we vastly prefer our blogs’ comment listings be filled with actual representations of you than an image that does nothing but scream “I don’t have a Gravatar!”

At least scream something more productive.

This blog has been horrifically overdue for a jump-start for far too long now. I can’t imagine anyone disputing that my blogging report card this past year is one giant F-. Why, I even had the audacity to “relaunch” with a new design a little less than a year ago. Since then, I’ve posted three (3) full blog posts, and possibly a dozen aside updates. I should be ashamed of myself, and as luck would have it, I am.

Fortunately, as luck would further have it, I’m not too ashamed to admit my mistakes and move past them. And in this case, moving past them looks a whole heck of a lot like what you’re seeing right now.

I started the redesign process with some vague ideas and sketches in early June, but it wasn’t until mid-July that I really started to spend a significant amount of time on it. One big hurdle was that I wanted to design it from scratch myself. This being the first site that I’ve ever actually designed as opposed to just focusing on the code, it took a good deal of practice, experimentation, scrapped ideas, and helpful feedback from a few friends. In the end, I ended up picking a color scheme and general visual style and running with it, designing it largely as I coded it.

Early on, I was significantly influenced by the hyper-retro visual and musical style of the iPhone game, Eliss, as well as the indie, subtley-throwback sound of Phoenix’s latest album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Clearly, these weren’t direct inspirations, but they helped point me toward the style I eventually went with, and I think the blog still considers them grandfather figures.

So now, two months, dozens of hours, a thousand lines of CSS, and countless iTunes playlists later, it’s live. Still a work in progress, mind, but live and functional. I’m definitely happy with where it is, and very excited about getting back into the habit of posting new content.

And yes, as the Recent Cabeebage section of the sidebar may lead you to believe, I am going to start putting up some technical (by my standards) posts. And Websinal? Well, I suppose it’s those posts that fall somewhere between Personal and Technical. Gadgets, apps, life on the web, social media, technology, etc. It should probably be called Geeksinal.

I should probably be called Geeksinal.

One can welcome oneself back, can’t one? When it’s done in a rhetorical sense, then I think yes. Yes one can.

It’s been nearly four months since I’ve made a post on Cabeeb.com. Absolutely inexcusable, if you ask me. The lapse is due largely in part to my blogging energies being focused on redesigning and rethinking this site from the ground up rather than trying to feed fresh content onto what was already there.

Therefore, four months later, I give you Cabeeb 2.0, in which I decided to completely change up the format with the new design. To help differentiate the content, the single pipeline approach has been done away with. Instead of having one stream of incoming content, I figured it would be better to complicate everything and have several. This serves many purposes. First, I’d hope that having lots of different content will make the site more interesting to visitors. Not only is there more to consume should you so choose, but every time you visit, hopefully at least a few of the streams will have new posts. Which ties directly into purpose 2: it’ll make it easier and more enjoyable for me to put up new stuff. Maybe I don’t feel like writing a full post, but I’ve got some video footage to post, or a new book that I can put up. I can, and I will. So, what are these new sections? Oh, I’m so glad you asked.

Articles
These are the posts that, up to this point have completely made up my blog. Poignant thoughts, intriguing conceptualizations, bone-jarring revelations; these are just a few of things that you should not expect in these articles.

Video Blogs
A new sensation in my world. Instead of writing something, why don’t I SHOW you?! Or better yet, just uninterestingly and monotonously say exactly what I would have otherwise written. Hey, it’s a work in progress, so give me a break.

Random Videos
Videos that I think deserve their place on Cabeeb, but don’t fit into the “blog” category. Most of these will be short clips of something stupid or ridiculous happening. Maybe even stupidly ridiculous. We can only hope.

Archive Post of the Week
I’ve been writing on this blog for over two and a half years. Most of the stuff I wrote way back then sucks, but there are a few gems. Why not capitalize on work that I’ve already done? I can’t think of a good reason, either.

Musical Addiction
I get addicted to songs to varying degrees. And like any true junkie, I want to share it with all my friends. To consolidate space, I will hereby redirect you to the official explanation of the Musical Addictions section.

Reading
I read quite a bit and I want to tell you all about it. So, as I’m reading a book, I’ll put up occasional updates/thoughts about it, and then write a quick post-thought after I finish. I’m not exactly sure how it’ll work, but work it will. Trust me.

That’s all I’ve got for now, but I’ll be adding even more sections as time goes by. I’ve got lots of ideas that I want to implement, but I decided to pass on them for launch. And generally speaking, there’s still tons to be done in functionality. I haven’t really worked on the searching or archive post navigation at all. And I am aware that the design is very stale and unpolished, which I’m going to shortly rectify. I’m all about function over form when it comes to my blog, so I wanted to get it working before I made it pretty.

So there you have it. Cabeeb is back; hopefully with a fury. Feedback is very, very welcome and appreciated. Unless I don’t like it; then it won’t be welcome nor appreciated.

Love.

While it’s a largely subjective concept, one way to quantitatively track your online fame is to see how high you rank on search engines.

For instance, the super-net guru of Fuor/ninja/best friend, Josiah Platt is the third return you get when you type “Josiah” into Google. It might not sound like a huge deal, but trust me, it is. One that he’s spent a significant amount of time and effort bringing to fuition.

I, on the other hand, am the 99th Caleb. Right at the bottom of the 10th page. Not exactly anything to scoff at, because Caleb is a fairly popular name, but it leaves me lots of room to move up. “Caleb White,” on the other hand, lands me right at the top of the search returns.

Charles is impressively the 10th return on a search of his name. Impressive because Charles Williams is a pretty common name, and it is also the name of an early-20th century British author. One of my father’s favorites, I might add.

Ryan is the first search return with his full name, but searching either just “Ryan” or “Loewe” he’s completely off the radar. But, his site doesn’t actually exist yet really, so that’s not terribly surprising.

Now, dear Brett has some obstacles to overcome. Not sure if it’s a hit on Brett or further praise to Josiah, but when one searches “Brett Tilford” on Google, Josiah Platt is the first return. Brett Tilford.com is, interestingly enough, fifth on the list.

Josiah got a little carried away with his conquering.

It’s a campaign for a Japanese clothing label, Uniqlo and I’m kind of hooked on it. The music and synchronized segments are creative and oddly captivating. And, well, Japanese girls are cute. What can I say?

It almost makes me want to buy one of those sweaters.

Almost.

1) In an attempt to boost the online presence of Fuor, of which I am a founding partner, we have all decided to revamp our blogs and become more active in the blogging world (ie blogosphere).
2) This design is pretty much a near-direct rip of another site originally meant only to be a temporary filler.
3) Cabeeb’s new layout will integrate my identity in several outside web-aps in one place and hopefully make the site more dynamic.

Stay tuned.

Happy Halloween

So, despite my small reader-base, I will continue writing, if not for your benefit, then for mine. Don’t get me wrong, I greatly appreciate all those who read and/or comment on my blog, and that really helps motivate me to write. But, I still do go into each post with the primary intention of better understanding and organizing my own thoughts. And hopefully, you’ll get something out of it too, but honestly, it’s all about me here.

Wow, I never realized I was that self-centered.

Well, today is my first last day of school. After tonight, I will never go to class again for the first time. At least not as an undergrad. And that’s a pretty nice feeling.

Almost… there…