The View from Here

Links for 2009-11-10 [del.icio.us]

2009-11-11T00:00:00-08:00

Movable dollhouse dolls in 1/12" scale one of a kind porcelain dolls sculpted by Daniela Kiefhaber
Posable, articulated
Marcia Backstrom Dolls, 1:12 scale, miniature dolls, resin, hand sculpted, doll kits, doll parts, accesories
Merry Gourmet Miniatures, Bath, UK
Home Page of Karen's Miniatures
food, accessories, etc.
Betsy Niederer Miniatures, Dollhouse Miniature Food by an IGMA Fellow
food, very realistic breads
Doll and Bear Miniatures
Miniature Cafe - Miniature wedding cake specialists
Ceynix Miniature Trees
Eileen Godfrey Miniatures
Dollhouse shop, does shows
Autumn Leaf Studio
Mini food, including imperfect food.
Welcome to Paone Design
Masks
Carabosse Dolls | Muñecas Carabosse
Lighting Bug Ltd.
ULUS miniaturas Dollhouse Miniatures by José María Bolio.
Includes tools and related accessories.
Nantasy Fantasy : Miniatures : Dollhouse Miniatures : Miniature Figurines : Artisian Dolls
Accessories, including tools, metal objects, etc.

Links for 2009-11-08 [del.icio.us]

2009-11-09T00:00:00-08:00

Master Repeating Patterns in Photoshop

Links for 2009-11-06 [del.icio.us]

2009-11-07T00:00:00-08:00

Facebook Dislike :: Add-ons for Firefox

Links for 2009-11-05 [del.icio.us]

2009-11-06T00:00:00-08:00

Links for 2009-11-04 [del.icio.us]

2009-11-05T00:00:00-08:00

GazoPa similar image search

Links for 2009-11-03 [del.icio.us]

2009-11-04T00:00:00-08:00

The App Garden on Flickr

Links for 2009-10-25 [del.icio.us]

2009-10-26T00:00:00-07:00

TheFacebookInsider.com: Free Mafia Wars, FarmVille, Cafe World Tips, Cheats, Secrets & More!

Flickr Galleries

2009-09-15T17:31:00.001-04:00

A brief form of this post appears on my photoblog, Creative Endeavors.
-----

Flickr has introduced Galleries, a way for flickrites to share photos they find and like on flickr. By limiting the galleries to 18 photos each, they force people to be a bit fussy. You get to act as a curator for a mini-online photo exhibition which is quite fun. I went through my favorites on flickr last night and created these galleries.

One annoying thing is that many photos I'd faved didn't allow me to add them to galleries, the photographer having turned off the feature. I fail to see any basic difference in allowing people to make a picture a favorite, which anyone can see by clicking on the favorites link on a person's page and allowing people to add them to galleries, also linked to on the person's page, which is essentially a grouping of favorites. And one would think people would want the extra publicity.

I've already been thanks by 8-10 photographers whose photos I've included in one or more of my galleries. Yet I read on discussion threads on flickr that some people got nasty notes from people whose photos they added, demanding they remove those photos from the galleries post haste. Sheesh.

Anyway, it's fun showing off the best of the best I've found on flickr and have them bunched together. I'm trying to not get carried away. :)

~~~o0o~~~

The Evolution of Bookmarking

2009-09-14T19:44:00.000-04:00

I used to bookmark links in my browser, first being AOL, then Internet Explorer, and finally, Firefox. Then I started saving bunches of them to a website I created. Next came delicious. Now I sometimes bookmark to Firefox, use delicious a bit more often, and have added Facebook to the mix. And if I really want to share, I post it to Twitter. Finally, from having everything in one place, everything is scattered, with a percentage of overlap and I lose track of where individual links are. I guess that's called progress. ;)

~~~o0o~~~

Some Articles Worth Reading on the State of Our Union

2009-09-14T16:48:00.000-04:00

From the NY Daily News, Mike Lupica on how in many ways, we've changed for the worse 8 years after 9/11 in how we conduct ourselves. I don't see a link for the particular column, but it's dated 9/14 and titled "Shrill shouters betray post-9/11 promises to be best we can be."

Also from the Daily News, also dated today, 9/14, an article by Filip Bondy, "Serena Williams' outburst at U.S. Open a raging success," which puts her "tantrum" into perspective when compared with the so-called "bad boys" of tennis.

And finally, one of my favorite political bloggers, whom the local NBC affiliate should never have let go, Jay DeDapper has this to say about racism and the attacks on the President's health care proposals and the need for reform.

You may assume, from my linking to these articles, that I agree with the points made. Please be respectful if you leave comments, especially ones of opposing viewpoints. I will delete nastiness.

~~~o0o~~~

Blogger and an Unrelated Peeve

2009-09-12T11:30:00.000-04:00

Blogger continues to roll out new features to celebrate its anniversary. You can keep up with the goings-on via Blogger Buzz. Recently, they've added Jump Cuts, Events Invite, and an iPhone app, among other things, with more to come. While none of these 3 interests me, it's fun seeing what new toys they've created for us to play with.

One thing that's really starting to bug me is the standard blogging practice of posting links. As far as it goes, it's cool. And when I'm on a link blog, that's all I need. The link. So when there's some commentary to go with it, that's great. But I follow those blogs because I'm looking for links, usually fun ones. But when I read a blog of commentary and/or opinions, reminiscing, information, etc., I expect more than just links. Sure, share the link or video, but tell me what they are and what you think of them. I can find links and videos on my own. Give me something more. Give me a reason to pay attention to them. Why did they stand out for you that you wanted to share them?

~~~o0o~~~

Health Care Reform

2009-08-29T15:44:00.000-04:00

An article definitely worth reading on the subject of health insurance and the need for reform, about someone in the health insurance business who now believes in reforming the industry from which he resigned.

~~~o0o~~~

Blogger Update

2009-08-25T21:12:00.000-04:00

Blogger is celebrating its anniversary by rolling out new features, using responses to polls they conducted. They've just instituted options for the labels widget. You can do a cloud or set the widget to show only selected labels. I switched to a cloud here; it takes up less room than the list form.

~~~o0o~~~

It Might be News but is it True?

2009-08-25T18:17:00.000-04:00

Jay DeDapper's essay Facts, No Thanks is must reading for anyone who cares about the current events. He really nails the growing problem of people who define facts as whatever agrees with what they believe. DeDapper was a reporter on NBC New York's local newscast until he got laid off with a number of other experienced reporters. I liked his reporting and missed it, but fortunately, he started a blog, Get Real with Jay DeDapper. Definitely a blog worth following.

~~~o0o~~~

Personas

2009-08-23T15:20:00.000-04:00

How the internet sees you: Personas from MIT. This is popping up all over the internet, on blogs and Facebook and LiveJournal, etc, but it's of limited use, especially if you have a common name. My legal name is not common, but I could see other people slipping into the search. Someone with my name plus a second last name (a hyphenate!) was especially prevalent in my results. It also says it's designed for a screen resolution of 800 x 600, but with my widescreen monitor, I had to bump it up higher than my usual 1024 x 768 in order to fit the search box in. Anyway, it's amusing in its own way and somewhat attractive. They call it an art piece, not a tool, for what that's worth.

~~~o0o~~~

It Doesn't Take Much to Be Accessible

2009-08-20T00:36:00.001-04:00

I finally finished my box of these and stopped into a drugstore to pick up another pack, because I get papercuts all the time, not to mention other boo-boos, and was so pleased to see Johnson & Johnson now has their Band-Aid boxes with braille labeling. So, even though the store brand (colored deceptively similar to J&J's boxes) was a bit cheaper, I rewarded J&J for this simple yet vital effort to help braille-reading blind and visually impaired customers to find their product on the shelves.

One issue is that people might not always know there are braille labels to look for. The more companies that do this, the more people will come to expect it and for people who need and can read braille, finding what they want on their own can and will become the norm. That is true independence.
~~~o0o~~~

Re-Tweeting

2009-08-13T20:55:00.000-04:00

Twitter plans to make Re-Tweeing (RT) an official part of Twitter. I like how they absorb the conventions their users come up with. For now, if you want to Re-Tweet a Tweet from someone you follow, you type RT, then the @ plus the Tweeter's username, then copy and paste in the Tweet. Cumbersome, indeed. As soon as they work through the process with the developers who use their API (it's a code thing, for other apps that work with Twitter), they'll launch it officially. That will make things so much easier and simpler for those of us who use the service. tweet tweet

~~~o0o~~~

Health Care Reform

2009-08-12T23:26:00.000-04:00

Too many people are too quick to believe rumors about health care reform proposed by President Obama. Reform is needed to prevent the kind of things the rumor mongers claim Obama is supporting.

And while I'm posting, what's the fuss about Hillary Clinton's little fit of pique? I've seen the video. News items make it sound like she'd thrown a tantrum, tossing things and shrieking like a banshee or something. To me, it sounded like she was a tad irritated. I wonder if so much fuss would've been made if:
1. she were a man
2. people weren't looking for reasons to cast doubt on the Obama administration.

~~~o0o~~~

Socializing Online

2009-07-27T19:29:00.000-04:00

Actor Zachary Quinto (Sylar on Heroes, Spock in the new Star Trek movie) is trying something that I don't think anyone has really done before, creating a social community on his website. There are plenty of celebrities with message boards and the like, but Quinto seems to be taking it a step further, working with Six Apart to add functionality. He's encouraging his fans to:

"Sign up.
Join in.
Create your own profile inside of ZQ.com
Explore.
Contribute.
Post a photo.
Make a video.
Record your thoughts as an audio file.
Post your original music.
Write a message, a story, a poem.
Post a link.
Comment on and favorite other posts.
Connect with other fans."

It will be interesting to see how this develops. And it's nice to see how involved he is with his fans. (I hope this is him and not someone doing the work in his name.) He also has a Facebook and Twitter presence. And I wonder if this will be the start of a trend.

~~~o0o~~~

Amazon Buys Zappos

2009-07-23T16:16:00.000-04:00

I saw this in the Daily News and tracked it down online. Zappos is my favorite online seller. I buy from Amazon but I'm less thrilled with them. I buy lots of dvds and some books from them, but I'm not happy with how they're handling ebooks for the Kindle, and other issues. The article says Zappos' management team will remain, but I'm wondering how this will affect the company and the service. Will Zappos be able to continue to send all orders overnight for free? It's not advertised, but they do it, as a surprise gift to buyers.The free shipping and excellent customer service have kept me buying from Zappos. I really hope this is just a behind-the-scenes thing and the service upfront will remain as is. But I'm concerned.

When FedEx bought Kinkos, the company became FedEx Kinkos. Now I see signs in the store announcing they'll be called FedEx Office, obliterating the Kinkos brand. I would hate for Zappos to be absorbed into Amazon someday.

Here's the press release from Amazon and the CEO letter to employees, posted on their blog, from Zappos. I had to search it out because they didn't exactly announce it on their home pages. They both make it sound like Zappos will remain independent, and I hope that continues to be the case for the future.

~~~o0o~~~

Online Addictions and Me

2009-07-15T00:25:00.000-04:00

I posted part of this over on Cyber Chocolate, but it fits here, so I'm reposting it and adding to it.

I'm addicted to Pet Society on Facebook. I admit it. I play that damned game every night and when it's not working, I go through withdrawal. It's sad, really. I'm a grown woman, addicted to a silly little animated online game. It's been mostly down the last few days and I seem to have forgotten how I used to spend my time before the game came into my life. Now that's really sad.

So, I was reminded by this how once I spent too many hours reading blogs and writing blog entries. Or the nights I spent making user pics with Photoshop for my LiveJournal. Or cruising flickr, especially reloading Explore/Interestingness over and over and over for hours on end.

One of the appeals of Pet Society for me is the level of interaction. At first, it was the cute graphics, but I quickly realized that my pet seemed to react to me. Sure, it's all programming, but the programmers are clever in how they've conceived the pets. They react to objects when you click on the objects, but also, on their own. When left to their own devices, they'll pick up toys set on the floor and move them around. They hop into the tub for a bath. They "think" in images of food when hungry, sigh heavily when very hungry, and will play with particular items, ie blow on the pinwheel or kick a soccer ball or answer a cell phone without prompting. The game is constantly changing, with new items added weekly.

You can also run races, grow plants, and visit other pets, all of which earn coins which let you buy more things, and Paw Points which help you earn more rooms.

Another appeal for me is the chance to play decorator and earn more rooms to decorate. In a way, it's a virtual dollhouse, and I love (and have) dollhouses. The game is now available on MySpace, but has been on Facebook for over a year now. I've been playing since last fall, but it's been only the past few months that my level of playing has reached addiction proportions. And I love seeing what other people do with their pet homes as I enjoy decorating my own.

At some point, my level of play likely will wane. I wonder what will replace Pet Society as my main online addiction when that happens.

~~~o0o~~~

Gadgets for Blogger

2009-07-10T19:33:00.000-04:00

The Blogger Featured Gadget Blog is a good way to keep up with third-party gadgets designed for Blogger blogs. With Blogger encouraging third parties to develop gadgets, there should be a nice selection featured there.

~~~o0o~~~

Copyright and Fair Use

2009-06-26T21:20:00.000-04:00

A blog entry on the NY Times site about printing out pics from sites like flickr got folks on flickr up in arms over people stealing their work, using without permission, etc. This follow-up discusses the issue of Fair Use and how the law hasn't yet caught up with the reality of the internet/web. There's no clear answer to this, but my feeling is, and remains, that if you're doing it for your personal use, it's fair use.

The best thing is to always ask permission, or look for a Creative Commons license. I have a CC license on my flickr pics that allow all non-commercial uses, and while I like being asked first, I don't mind when I'm not. Because the reality is, it's easy to make copies without anyone knowing. You can print. You can save. You can do screen caps. You can take photos of the photo. Even with music, if you don't care about the quality, you can stick a microphone next to a speaker and record a song being played, on your computer or from the radio. You have the right to make recordings of TV shows and movies for watching later, and unless the disks have DRM on them to prevent it, it is physically possible to make copies of CDs and DVDs, which many people do.

People today are very accustomed to making copies of things to keep. There are photocopiers to make copies of articles in magazines or chapters in books. You can print from websites, in libraries, as well as at home. You can buy copiers, scanners, and printers to do this in the privacy of your home. When I was a kid, I made lousy recordings from the radio of favorite songs, sitting with the microphone of my little reel-to-reel tape recorder and later, a cassette recorder, hoping to hear a song announced or that I'd recognize it fast enough to hit the record button before too much was missed. Technology since the '60s and '70s has trained us that this is all doable and it's led to a feeling of entitlement, to acceptance of a practice the creators of the works being copied find akin to theft, even if no profit is made from the copying.

I fall into the "don't make a profit and I don't care" camp. If I post it online, it's for the taking, because I know there's no way to prevent it, anyway. If I cared, I wouldn't post it.

The music industry has made a mess of going after music download "thieves." They went after file-sharing Napster. They seem to suddenly see radio, which provides free publicity for music, as the enemy. I've read comments online from photographers who resent those of us who let people use our pics free of charge, claiming we're hurting the photography industry. My take on it is that maybe if they had to pay, they wouldn't even get the pics, or they'd take their own, or they'd buy from the cheapest photographer. Someone who prints a pic out from flickr might not want to pay for it. They'll decorate with something else. Stopping the free stuff doesn't mean sudden sales for the people who charge. The only way to stop the printing and copying would be a Big Brother setup and I'm not willing to go there.

This issue has become a point of contention for libraries which are dedicated to providing materials for free. People hate the sales they lose when people borrow rather than buy. But libraries are one of the biggest sources of sales for midlist and lower books and other materials.

I could say a lot more on this topic, but I'm starting to ramble, so this will have to do for now.

~~~o0o~~~

Future Web

2009-06-24T01:06:00.000-04:00

This Wired article about the Facebook/Google war makes for fascinating reading. It boils down to one major difference.

"Today, the Google-Facebook rivalry isn't just going strong, it has evolved into a full-blown battle over the future of the Internet—its structure, design, and utility. For the last decade or so, the Web has been defined by Google's algorithms—rigorous and efficient equations that parse practically every byte of online activity to build a dispassionate atlas of the online world. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions a more personalized, humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information, just as it is offline. In Zuckerberg's vision, users will query this "social graph" to find a doctor, the best camera, or someone to hire—rather than tapping the cold mathematics of a Google search."

And that ties into some thoughts I've recently had about why I like Facebook.

I don't see why both aren't and can't remain relevant, although that might just be my middle-aged perspective and the younger generations might see it much differently. I have two online personas: the mostly anonymous one you see here who also hangs out on message boards, blogs on LiveJournal as well as on Blogger, who uploads pics and joins in on discussions on flickr, tweets updates on Twitter, catalogs her books on Library Thing, and generally roams the web at my leisure & the real me who has a Facebook account that she protects behind restrictions and filters. And while there are people who know me on real life who also read my more anonymous blogs and look at my online pics, I keep ShellyS and the real me as separate as possible. My Twitter tweets show up in sidebar widgets on my blog, but not on Facebook, letting me be a bit more open as ShellyS where certain people aren't likely to find me.

Sure, I have friends on Facebook I really don't know, and I've created friend filters to keep them out of the loop for most of my updates there. I'm friends with them online only. But I've discovered I enjoy the ease of use of Facebook to keep up with real life friends I rarely if ever see in real life. Email is tedious. That sounds so strange, given it takes almost no time at all to go from my gmail account to the recipient, and yet, it requires me to actually write emails to individuals, many of whom I don't have that sort of friendship with. Mass emails are so impersonal and might be interpreted as spam by some email spam filters. Just sending more than a couple of photos at a time to an Earthlink account can cause it to bounce back. And once I do email, I have to wait for a reply. It's just like snail mail, especially if one or both parties aren't the swiftest when it comes to replying.

But on Facebook, I can put pics in albums, tag 'em for my friends on FB who appear in the pics, and they'll get alerts that there are pics to see. I can even leave a status message announcing new pics are available. )I do have my flickr account notify my FB account of new uploads, so there is some overlap, but nothing from FB to other sites.) And I've found I'm more in touch with the few real life friends on FB than I ever was before, provided they, too, use it. I can play word games with them, compare quiz results, indicate I like something they posted, leave comments on their posts and uploaded pics, and generally "be in touch." And they can do the same with me.

Unlike my Twitter page, which rapidly fills up with updates from over a hundred tweets I follow (not unlike all the blog feeds I read over on Bloglines and my LiveJournal friends), I keep my FB newsfeed restricted to the friends I really want to keep up with and the graphic design makes it easy to see not only who's updating (w/avatars, same as on Twitter's site), but with graphics for the various apps, groups, fan pages, etc. Both Twitter and FB have mobile means of updating and reading updates, as well. But I use Twitter to keep up with online friends, real life friends who use it (not many), and actors and other "celebrities" I enjoy knowing about. With Facebook, it's real life friends, plus some groups and fan pages that interest me. There is some overlap as I compare the services and learn how they work best, but mostly, Twitter is for ShellyS and FB is for the real me, if that makes any sense.

FB is fast and easy and people don't have to respond to what I post, but it's nice when they do. But I'm as apt to Google for information, or use trusted, authoritative sites, or more so, than I am to ask a friend on Facebook. So it might be a generational thing and maybe someday, FB's way will be the only way that matters. But for now, I think there are enough of us who enjoy the anonymity we can have online that lets us reach far beyond our sphere of influence while retaining our privacy for Google's way to stay relevant. At least, I hope so, for the next few decades at least. After that, I might just be too old to care.

~~~o0o~~~

Can't Leave Home Without

2009-06-18T18:57:00.002-04:00

As I was downloading my first book into my new Kindle 2 last night, I was struck by the thought of all the new electronic toys in my life, as yesterday also marked the arrival of my new digital slr camera. Previously, I traveled light, either in my daily wanderings (for work, play) or on vacation/trips. One small suitcase with change of clothes. I had bottled water, tissues, wallet, keys, a book to read (paperback only). And over the last few years, more and more things have crept in:

cellphone

point & shoot pocket digital camera

phone charger

camera charger and cable (for trips)

Kindle

I need a bag just for this stuff when I travel. Then there's the laptop, in its own bag, with its own power cord, as well as an extra battery and a mouse. And I know I'm not carrying nearly as much as other people.

I can't imagine life now without a computer, and while I don't use the cellphone much, it has become a nice, quick way to check email when I'm not near a computer or wifi connection. I still prefer print books, but I can see that the Kindle could become addicting. Life has changed a lot in the past 3-4 years and I suspect it will change even more in the next year or two. To think, I grew up with a rotary phone and a black & white tv the size of a piece of furniture, and I've seen more tech changes in the past decade than my first four. Food for thought.

~~~o0o~~~

Finding Yourself on Facebook

2009-06-13T11:52:00.000-04:00

Facebook is now allowing its members to grab personalized URLs; instead of those long numbers that follow the main part of the URL now, you can have actual names. The idea behind it is to make people more discoverable to family and friends searching for them. They've limited it for now to people already FB members to avoid people signing up to snare desireable URLs and other abuses. Plus, certain words/phrases will not be available.

It certainly sounds good and a lot of people have already taken advantage of the offer. But I won't. Because I don't want to be more discoverable. That's why I don't connect my Facebook account with all my other online services and identities (where I'm some version of Shelly or ShellyS). My name is uncommon enough that I am findable if you really know me, which is about all I want.

~~~o0o~~~

Dream Blog

2009-05-07T18:27:00.000-04:00

Over on LiveJournal, I heard about a new blogging service called Dreamwidth in beta testing. Some of my LJ friends had gotten invites and in the usual hysteria over LJ (will it be sold again? complaints about the current owners. complaints about ads and things not working?. annoyed with changes.), people are looking to this new service as a backup/place to go if they leave LJ. Before Dreamwidth, many LJers went to Insane Journal as a backup/just in case blog.

LiveJournal is an Open Source, and both Dreamwidth and InsaneJournal use its code, with some tweaking, so it's almost like being on LJ. I tried IJ, but since it was so similar to LJ and I have more faith in LJ than the people prone to panic or who hate change, I don't use it.

But I got curious about Dreamwidth because it's new and they're trying to be ad-free by making money from paid accounts (there is a free version) and it is fun to get in on the ground floor. So, I scored an invite from a friend (and no, I don't have invites yet to give out) and got started, going for a paid account at the limited time frame discount rate. And am less than impressed. They really aren't ready yet for prime time.

There are 4 templates with no themes, although you can customize the colors. If you want to do your own style sheet, you can, but unlike Blogger, but like LJ, you don't work in the actual template code, which I always found confusing in LJ. I can play with colors and such, but really changing a design, even just moving the sidebar, is not something I've been able to figure out. So I need to wait for more templates in the hopes of getting something I like.

They don't have a logged in version of the home page yet. To actually read my own journal, I have to snag the url and bookmark it, wait til I post to get the link to view my journal, or go to my Reading List (a la LJ's Friends' Page) and get the link from the navbar there. There's a choice of color scheme for the site once logged in and neither appealed to me. Both have color combinations that are hard for me to read.

This might be a great blogging platform someday, but they've got a way to go. And I hope they do some serious tweaing/revising of the code. When sites look alike, I get bored. Sure, better service would be a good thing, but I also like sites to distinguish themselves from each other. LJ and other sites using their code should not look like clones. There should be some real differences. Otherwise, why bother.

Oh, right. The people ticked off by LJ need a place to go.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with my Dreamwidth journal.

~~~o0o~~~

AOL Message Boards Rise from the Dead

2009-04-26T00:53:00.000-04:00

I hadn't been able to even see if they were still around because there were no links on aol.com. I thought it might be that you needed to use AOL's software directly, or maybe they were truly gone. I'd been discussing the situation with folks on a usenet writing group and thought I'd take another look on aol.com tonight. Well, there were complaints, it seems, and AOL gave in and restored the boards they'd deleted. There were only 2 posts (1 each on 2 of my Favorite Boards) to read and I wonder if folks will keep trying and discover they're back.

But the Journals are gone and now Yahoo is taking down Geocities webhosting service. The internet/web has become a very different place since AOL (and Compuserve and Prodigy) launched, with a lot of newer, better options for the things these services offered when there was precious little else like them.

People, however, get comfortable with something and many don't like to change. Sometimes, it's best to move on. But I'm glad the boards are back. At least one has been a real community for a long time and AOL did the right thing. Customer service and building communities should still be part of their mandate. If not through journals any more, at least with the message boards.

~~~o0o~~~

Your Email, Yourself

2009-04-13T13:22:00.000-04:00

I saw this link on Bill Crider's blog and couldn't resist taking a look: What Your Personal E-mail Provider Says About You. Firefox blocked 2 popups, so beware. Anyway, given I mostly use Gmail (since soon after it was rolled out in 2004), I was amused by this:

"@gmail.com
When Gmail rolled out in 2004, you thought you were pretty darn special because someone had invited you to use the free service and you could ditch your now passé @yahoo.com account.
TYPICAL USER: Thirtysomethings who are trying to feel as cool as twentysomethings and who also hate Microsoft (mostly because they think it's cool to hate Microsoft) and have entrusted entirely too much of their personal information to those "Do No Evil" Google guys."

Yeah, I guess we 50-something Baby Boomers don't count. And the account I ditched was AOL. Meanwhile, I also have a Yahoo email addy I use exclusively for online shopping.

So, I'm not typical, because I use gmail and because, according to the article, I typically would have stayed with AOL. Then again, I've rarely been accused of being typical.

So, what does your email say about you?
~~~o0o~~~

Noteworthy

2009-04-07T14:58:00.000-04:00

The Library of Congress just unveiled its YouTube channel.

Facebook is trying to be more accessible to people with disabilities. They made a FAQs page discussing the issues and how people who cannot access the site normally can still use it.

~~~o0o~~~

AOL Does it Again

2009-03-31T12:02:00.000-04:00

AOL is revamping their message boards. I hope the link is an external one that is viewable to folks not logged into an aol.com account. At any rate, today is the big day for the renovation of some boards and the retirement of others. The AOL boards I've remained active on are very few and have been next to ghost towns in the last year or so, with no more than sporadic posting other than a Readers and Reading board that has remained active. The folks from that board have gotten fed up and many are moving to GoodReads. Since I already have a LibraryThing account, and no interest in joining another book site, I'm going to have to make my departure from that group of wonderful reading folks.

But aside from the blog entry about the changes to the message boards (and no clue as to which ones will survive the implosion), there is no mention on the message boards menu page. No message that the Boards are Not Currently Active. All you get are error messages when you click the links to the boards. Now, really, how difficult could it be to put up a banner across the top of the page that the boards are inaccessible for now and to check back later, maybe even post updates as to when they'll be available, if ever. But since AOL really doesn't seem to care about its subscribers anymore, other than to insure they can see all the ads they now plaster all over their pages, I didn't really expect that level of communication from them.

Ah, AOL message boards. I knew you well. I shall miss you.

~~~o0o~~~

Can We Tweet?

2009-03-27T15:59:00.000-04:00

Never one to waste a post, I'm copying this, with a minor adjustment, from my work blog. I wrote this in response to a comment about Twitter being for "16-year-olds and hipsters" that was made on another work blog about Twitter.

I’m not pushing Twitter on anyone, but I do think there are more uses for it than a lot of people realize. When I first encountered it, at the same time I found out about Tumblr, I didn’t get it and couldn’t see why anyone would use it. But I tried it, along with Tumblr, and while Tumblr, a no-frills blogging platform, was not for me, Twitter has been fun. It’s not something I depend on, but I enjoy it and I can see its benefits. The fact that so many people — and not just the young and hip — use it must mean there’s more to it than a mere fad. And while some people try it only to abandon it soon after, many people find themselves caught up in the possibilities of it. Of course, once new tech gets covered by the old media, as Twitter has been, that often signals the end is near. But I think Twitter has sticking power.

It can work like a more public, open version of Facebook’s status updates. Its uses are as varied as the people who use it, from The Library of Congress and LIS News to the State Department, from the first lines of books tweets from TwitterLit to where the WaffelTruck is today. Mars junkies can follow the exploits of Mars Phoenix. Blogger uses it to highlight its Blogs of Note as well as updates re: maintenance. Clearly, sites that go down can use Twitter to inform people of such problems when they have no way to do it through their own venue.

From Twitter’s site:

“Twitter solves information overload by changing expectations traditionally associated with online communication. At Twitter, we ask one question, “What are you doing?” The answers to this question are for the most part rhetorical. In other words, users do not expect a response when they send a message to Twitter. On the receiving end, Twitter is ambient–updates from your friends and relatives float to your phone, IM, or web site and you are only expected to pay as much or as little attention to them as you see fit.”

Re: a question on how people follow tweets. You can follow someone’s tweets a few ways that I know of. If they have a public page, you can routinely check that, which is tedious. Ideally, you can follow them by clicking the “follow” link and have their tweets come to you, either on your Twitter page, in email, in instant messages, in text messages on your mobile device, or in a widget on another page, ie a gadget on iGoogle. In addition, many people, myself included, have added Twitter widgets to the sidebar of our blogs, and some people have their tweets show up as blog entries, so if you subscribe to their blogs, you’ll get their tweets, too.

People seem to mostly tweet from mobile devices, and I know that I’m not likely to text a blog post from my cellphone. My blog posts are usually longer than 140 characters (like this one!) and are things I prefer to take more time composing. But the advantage of having quick bursts of info come to me is very nice.
I’ve read of people traveling who use Twitter to update their families about their location, where to pick them up, or just to make themselves available. With Twitter, it’s very easy to send the same burst of info to many people at once and only those people following.

Not all websites have feeds. Not all websites make it easy to get updates without visiting the site. Twitter is a way to pull in info from many places into one stream and more efficiently and accessibly than via a feed reader. I subscribe to hundreds of blogs, but only 90 Twitterers, and of those, only half are really active and of the active ones, approximately 2/3 are actual people. The rest are blog update alerts, the WaffelTruck, the State Department, LIS News, and a couple of other library related services. The WaffelTruck will tweet code words to use to get a free topping that day, a special for their Twitter followers. Other Twitterers hold contests.

Twitter updates in real time. Bloglines, my feed reader updates more frequently than it used to, but it still isn’t in real time. My Bloglines feeds include a lot of sites I want to look at at my leisure: blogs, flickr discussions and photos, news, sports, and so on. Twitter is more immediate, bursts of information and conversations.

Some of the people I follow are funny. Some provide a personal view of an interesting area, ie StandIn who is a stand in in Hollywood who tweets from the set of whatever TV show or movie he’s working on. I’ve read that the fire department in the Los Angeles area tweeted updates re: raging fires last year, including street closings. Tweets to mobile devices make that important information readily available to people not sitting at computers.

Celebrities tweet. My favorites are Wil Wheaton, Neil Gaiman (who is currently running a photo caption contest on Twitter), and David Hewlett (from Stargate: Atlantis).

Finally, you have some control. You can limit who sees you to followers only. You can block people. And I appreciate that the people behind Twitter seem determined to keep it simple, to stick to its basic premise and add only functionality that enhances the core service (ie adding how you can receive tweets), rather than add on bells and whistles.

To sum up, I tweeted about doing this blog entry and one of the people I follow and who follows me tweeted this (used with her permission), all during the time I worked on this post: “I am not sure that anyone “gets” Twitter. In the sense that everyone seems to think everyone else is doing it wrong. :)”

~~~o0o~~~