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Twitter Twatter


Pat & Moby

I got to meet my 3rd twitter contact today. He was also my first overseas guest. Patireland from Ireland was in town for business. We hung out over dinner and then coffee. Charming fellow and it was an enjoyable meeting. We had a great conversation about the use of twitter, facebook and other online social sites.

Sadly, he had to see me act in my work capacity. [1]An 800 was harassing the employee at the Starbucks. A quickie phone call to work took care of that.

All in all, a great first meeting.

References

References
↑1 An 800 was harassing the employee at the Starbucks. A quickie phone call to work took care of that.

Blog or Blog

I decided to switch from Windows Live Writer back to Post2blog. WLW is nice and functions well but, I don’t care for all the extraneous code it adds to the posts. As usual Microsoft screws up a great product with overkill.

Post2blog isn’t as polished as WLW however, it gets the job done and offers a few extra nifty editing functions. Best of all, it doesn’t add more html code than necessary. Simple, functional and best of all, free!

Who’s Space?

I’ve been deleting some of my online profiles as of late.  Tribe.net was the first to get the ax about 6 months ago.  After their overhaul last year, it just died.  With the new government regulations on xxx pictures on the net, they went overboard with restrictions.  The advertising was also very intrusive.  You couldn’t get away from it.  Chop chop.

My friendster account got the ax last month as well.  What used to be a big player in the market was completely overshadowed by myspace.  Having never met a single person on friendster, it was time to go.    Chop

Speaking of myspace, I’ve decided to give it up as well.  I’ve met 1, count’em 1 person on myspace in real life.  Everyone else I already know.  How many social sites do I need to communicate with the same 50 people?  I hadn’t logged into myspace in so long I’d forgotten my password and had to reset it. 

The purpose of a social networking site is to encourage interaction between people.  Hence the title "social".  From my perspectives, most of these sites are geared for capturing advertising revenue with a hind thought thrown in for users.  I’ve been giving facebook a whirl for a few months now but I’m not really optimistic.  Same story, different site.  I’ll give it some time though. 

Ironically, I’ve met tons of folks thru blogging over the last 4 years.  Now with Twitter and Pownce on the horizon, I’ve met several more.  Say what you will about the plethora of drivel that you can find on said sites, they quickly capture your attention given the chance. 

Geek. Yeah And?

One of my coworkers was looking over my shoulder a few minutes ago watching me and flipped out.  She couldn’t believe how much I had going and how easy it was to update everything.  I have to admit the line between online and off is quickly blurring with the progression of web2.0. [1]Basically, programs written to access online content without the need for a web browser  Everything is slowly moving that direction.  Ten years from now, you’ll see web access as a requirement vs luxury.  Speaking of geeking out, if you twitter and use Windows, check out Spaz.  Awesome desktop program to access all your tweets.  I fraking love it!  My buddy turnipstyle turned me on to it so kudos to him for the nod. 

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I finally crossed the threshold this week from being almost sick to sick.  I had to leave work early two days ago.  I got 10 hours of sleep both nights and seem to be better today.  I’m in a shitty mood today though.  Not to mention I totally forgot I had to work overtime today.  Shit bricks.   blech

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TFA called regarding some really good news he got this week.  I was very happy to hear it but even happier to hear some of the life return to his voice.  He has been so run down and depressed lately.  Hearing him so upbeat made my sick day bearable. 

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The roomie still hasn’t found a job but has a couple of good leads.  I feel for him as I hate being out of work.  Financially, he is ok for a few more months. 

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I broke down and created a new "listening" page (left side).  Now that I’m buying music again, I figure I might as well share.  I joined last.fm and they offer a nifty plugin to show what I’m listening too.  It doesn’t always work though and it’s limited to my last 7 songs.  Anyone use something better let me know.  I’m a Winamp fan and it needs work with it. 

References

References
↑1 Basically, programs written to access online content without the need for a web browser

Techno-crap II

So, I’ve finally given up on technorati ever getting their act together and functioning.  If you don’t know, the company uses a system that basically tells who is linking to who.  It also has a ranking system based on how many links a person gets.  The problem is it rarely works.  Or at the very least, it works in spurts.  They seem to be constantly adding more algorithms to their list of links but still nothing.  Of course, I’m also overlooking that the entire system is flawed and easily spoofed.   

Hopefully, someone (are you paying attention Google?) will come along and design a system that actually works.  *le sigh*

Yipeeee!

In really exciting news (well for me anyway), I got Saturday, Sundays, AND Mondays off starting in late January.  I’m switching to a 4/10 shift  (4 days 10 hours).  I almost got Friday, Saturday, Sunday but the person right above me in seniority jumped shifts and took it.  I’m just looking forward to having the whole weekend off for a change.  Color me surprised!

Oh, if you subscribe to my post updates sorry about the odd one.  I just installed Windows Live Writer and am testing it out. [1]It allows me to post directly from my desktop vs opening up a browser window.   Anyway, it posted and then deleted a test post full of gibberish.  Unfortunately, the subscribe plug-in mailed it out to everyone as an update.  Ooops!

I already use Post2blog which is nice if not a bit rough around the edges.  I read my buddy Victor’s post over at v-hold.net and thought I’d give it a whirl.

References

References
↑1 It allows me to post directly from my desktop vs opening up a browser window.

From Pics to Spam

Ok, I’m over my bathroom kick, at least for awhile. So, todays madness is about pics. I’ve gotten a couple of emails asking for more pics of me. I’ve been contemplating adding a photoblog here but since I’m considering folding the blog into my domain, it doesn’t really make much sense to go thru all the effort just to change it again. Being lazy, I just changed my profile pic. Oy! What a mug huh? Face like that could crack glass.

Speaking of pics, why is it people feel the need to lie or hide their identities online? I won’t even go into online dating/sex sites where guys use fake pics to hook up for nookie. No, we’ll tuck that rant away for a rainy day. Most of my buddies think its from a secret desire to be anonymous and naughty at the same time. I guess that makes sense but, you really aren’t being anonymous. Your IP address can be traced back to you along w/your name and address. (For those non-techie folks, IP stands for internet protocol. Its a string of numbers, unique to you, your computer uses to identify you on the network. ) These numbers are easy to look up for free even to a novice internet user. And most people seem to know this but fall prey to the mentality “oh it won’t happen to me.” Or, if they can’t see it happening, they don’t really think much about it. Of course, this probably explains why viruses spread so quickly. I know some of you are thinking, “no, that can’t be right. No, he doesn’t know what he is talking about.” Ok, well here is a classic example of how Porn sites magically get your information.

Step 1. You visit Site A. Your browser is set to accept cookies. (you know it is) Part of the cookie is your IP address. BAM! They have you right there. They ping your IP to discover your name/home address and add you to their snail mail spam list. It is really that easy.

Step 2. You visit Site B. Your browser is set to accept cookies. This time, the cookie looks for your personal info you filled out when you bought the PC. Yes, they do that, and its perfectly legal. BAM! You could now begin getting snail mail and email spam AND if you filled out your home phone number, they can now CALL you w/more spam.

So the next time you log onto your favorite porn site, remember someone is watching!

From Blogs to Hard Drives

I realized today I need to update my blog list. I’ve noticed I’m turning up on quite a few blogs so I’ll be returning the favor soon enough. I normally read most of my blogs thru an RSS reader. I’ve actually found it takes some of the fun out of it for me so I’m switching back to the old method of just pulling up the webpage.

Btw, does anyone have a fully functional Registry Editing Program? I’m dying for a new one. I lost my old one in a hard drive crash and I can’t seem to find it on the web now.