Rob Dolin's space

What I installed on my home Windows 7 PC

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:28:54 Z

As someone who works in the software industry (see disclaimer), I often get asked questions like "Do you recommend Windows 7" (Heck YES!) or "What is your favorite web browser?" (tie: IE8 and Flock.) One of the things I've learned from volunteering in politics is not to ask for a candidate's opinion, but to ask what the candidate actually does (ex: NOT "Do you support public schools?" but "Do your kids go to public schools?")

Now that Windows 7 is out, I've decided to expand on my December 2008 blog entry Recommendations for a Clean PC. Here's what I recommended (and installed on my wife's laptop):

This past week, I finally got sick of all of the pre-installed crap on H’s laptop so I reformatted the hard drive and did a complete re-install. Here’s what I installed to get a base PC configuration that she could use for her professional and volunteer work as well as something I could do the occasional web development on when she is on my desktop PC:

Windows Vista Ultimate
Windows Live (Free)
Microsoft Office Ultimate (Free trial)
Expression Web (Free trial)
Visual Web Dev (Free)
Firefox (Free)
Adobe Reader (Free)

Now that we bought a new desktop PC, here are the additions or substitutions that I've made now that some new software or versions (including Windows 7) are available:

Windows Vista -> Windows 7 (included with most new PC's) - Windows 7 is just straight-up awesome. My favorite feature is the window docking so I can easily dock one window on the left side of my monitor and another window on the right side. Thus, a single widescreen monitor can be used as if it was two.
Firefox --> Flock (free) + Chrome (free) - Since Windows 7 already comes with the the (IMHO) best productivity browse in IE8, I like to also install Flock which has great social features like a "People" column that connects to Facebook, Twitter, and Digg. (Hey Flockers, please add Windows Live.) Flock also uses the mozilla engine so it renders web pages like Firefox. I also installed Chrome because I've annecdotally noticed that it seems to render JavaScript games like Mafia Wars slightly faster than the IE or Mozilla engines and I've become slightly addicted to Mafia Wars after doing some research on online gaming. :)
Microsoft Security Essentials (free) - I always hate how some of the pre-installed anti-virus software seems to be overly cautious and constantly trying to up-sell me to some paid version. I like that Microsoft came-out with a basic, free anti-virus / anti-spyware program that doesn't try to up-sell you to a paid version. When Microsoft Security Essentials came-out, I installed it on H's laptop and it was part of what I added when setting-up my Win7 PC (and removing the free but up-sell laden included anti-virus program.)

Happy computing--
--Rob

Updated ~6pm PST on 11/8: Added a mention of Microsoft Security Essentials

Introduction to GroupTweet

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 07:42:10 Z

I'm helping a few non-profits set-up Twitter account that multiple people can post to and we've been using GroupTweet so I decided to post a basic overview as more folks start using this:

Exec. Summary: When the group account receives a direct message from a group member, GroupTweet converts it into a tweet that all followers can see.

Details:

To generate this tweet:
SVPSeattle: via @WillowrSVP Off to the Communications Network Conference #comnet09 next week. Can't wait to see what folks are doing around the country!

WillowrSVP send a direct message to the SVPSeattle account.

As prerequisites: The SVPSeattle twitter account was set-up with GroupTweet and was following WillowrSVP.

I hope that helps give some background, please leave a comment (or at-reply to @RobDolin :) ) if you have questions.

Thanks--

--Rob

Three Screens and a Cloud should be Five Screens and a Cloud

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 00:39:05 Z

I've been hearing a bunch of people mention "three screens and a cloud" in reference to having experiences for PC, mobile, and TV and I've been thinking about how this should really potentially be "five screens and a cloud."

My reasoning here is that there's a huge difference between a native PC (or Mac) application and a web-based one. As much as the Office Web Companions or GoogleDocs have evolved, on my home or work PC, I would always choose the native MS Office application over the web-based one. Same for web-based email vs. Outlook.

Similarly, native mobile apps are a big step-up from the mobile web. The Bing app on my Windows Mobile phone is much better than http://m.bing.com/ but I'd use http://m.bing.com/ on my partner's iPhone. Similarly, I prefer the FourSquare iPhone app to http://m.foursquare.com/.

If you're developing an application out there, I hope you'll consider the potential of supporting the appropriate set of five screens for your app. FWIW--

--Rob

How to add Bing to the Opera web browser

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:05:27 Z

Bing is my preferred search engine, but working on web development, I usually install many browsers on a given machine. (IE8 and Flock are my current favorites.)

So, this morning, I tried to add Bing to a new install of Opera 10. When I went to www.bing.com as you can do in Firefox, there was no link at the top right to add Bing, so I did a bit of bing’ing ;) and found this blog entry from the Bing team: http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/06/11/bing-and-your-browser.aspx?PageIndex=3 that described how to add Bing to Chrome.

I found that similar instructions work with Opera:

1. In Opera, select Tools | Preferences

2. Click the Search tab

3. Click the [Add] button

4. Enter the below info:

(It’s up to you if you want to check the “Use as default search engine” box.)

5. Click [OK]

You may need to close and re-open opera for your default choice to take, but I was pleasantly surprised that this was so easy.

Happy bing’ing--
--Rob

Does politics belong in online reviews?

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:17:27 Z

As I was reviewing a restaurant on Yelp, I got to thinking about factors that affect purchasing decisions. Of course the quality of the goods, food, or service is a primary factor, but I would guess for many folks, a secondary factor is: Do the values of the retailer or producer align with mine? For example, I've heard people frequenting Molly Moon's Ice Cream in Seattle because it's owner is a former progressive political organizer. Or when I visited the Lake Chelan (WA) Starbucks, they had a board highlighting their community involvement. Or Seattle Coffee Works and their Obama Blend. And of couse, we've all seen the "Made in USA" labels.

It seems like businesses have realized that their politics, community involvmenet, and/or supply chain affects consumer purchasing decisions.

If these are factors in consumer purchasing decisions, should they also be included in online reviews?

Windows Live Embraces the Activity Streams Open Standard

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 15:10:37 Z

On Thursday, I posted on the Windows Live team blog about Activity Streams as an enabling technology for users to share activities between services like Facebook and Windows Live. My post got picked-up by the Port 25 blog which is "Communication from the Open Source community at Microsoft":

Windows Live Embraces the Activity Streams Open Standard
by Peter Galli on September 04, 2009 11:52AM
More good news with regard to Microsoft's embrace of open standards, this time out of the Windows Live group.
The Windows Live team is using a developing open standard called Activity Streams - an extension to the Atom feed format - which kicks in when users add Web Activity for Facebook and bring their status, photos, shared links, and more from Facebook into Windows Live to share in Messenger, Hotmail, and on their Windows Live Profile.

As Windows Live Program Manager Rob Dolin notes in a post on the team blog, what you may not know is that when you add the Facebook Web activity, the data is passed from Facebook to Windows Live using the developing Activity Streams open standard.
"With hundreds of thousands of users since release a few months ago, the Windows Live web activity for Facebook might be the largest implementation of Activity Streams today ... Just as many of our other web activities leverage community standards like RSS 2.0, Atom 1.0, and MediaRSS, I'm hopeful that Activity Streams will be a powerful enabling technology so users can bring their activities like status updates, posted photos, or shared links, from one service to another. We look forward to working with other partners to enable our mutual users to share their activities between services," Dolin says.

Choosing a text search engine for the pictures

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 14:41:50 Z

At a friend's birthday party a few days ago, a (non-engineer) was telling me why he chose Bing over Google for web search: The pictures.

He really liked the pictures that show-up every day when you go to http://www.bing.com/. On one hand, I can totally appreciate this as they're really a nice, warm touch and often lead me to some ad-hoc exploration of the photo. On the other hand, I would ideally think that people should choose a search engine based on the quality and relevance of the links.

Well, I've been using Bing back since it was called Bing and I've been happy that what I'm looking for is nearly always either the first hit or the first five hits; and the pictures are a nice touch. I've even set bing as my default search engine in Firefox. (I use multiple browsers regularly, but that's another story.)

Anyways, kudos to the Bing team on both great pictures and great search results--

--Rob

Dear comment spammer: Please leave a comment ;)

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 14:31:01 Z

I just set-up Windows Live Alerts for comments on my blog. I'm now alerted whenever there's a new comment on a recent blog entry. (You can too by selecting "Tools" | "Sign-up for alerts") on the top right of your Windows Live Space or any space.)

Now, I'll get nearly instant notices when there are new comments, and if they're spam, with a few clicks starting with the "Report Abuse" link at lower right, I can report the spammer.

So please comment spammers, please leave a comment. ;)

And fellow users, please help to report spam comments using the "Report Abuse" link at the bottom right of the page.

Thanks--

--Rob

Firefox: Well, this is embarrassing.

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 03:03:47 Z

I got the below error when Firefox could not restore a previous browsing session that I had. I appreciate the friendly and apologetic tone of the message:

Local (Seattle) Political and Advocacy Groups on Twitter

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 17:48:25 Z

I've noticed an increasing number of local political and advocacy groups are starting to get active on Twitter.

I've blogged in the past about King County Executive, Seattle Mayor, and Seattle City Council candidates that were active, and it's also great to see grassroots activist organizations reaching-out to their members / fans / constituents:

County party organizations: @KCDems and @KCGOP
Legislative district party organizations: @5thDems, @31stDems, @36th, @41stLDDems, @43rdDems (run by my friend @VanessaCasavant), and @wa46Dems, and @48Dems
Party caucuses: @WAProgCaucus and @YDWA (Young Dems of WA)
Other advocacy and politically related groups: @CascadeLand, @CivicCal, @MassTransitNow, @MuniLeague, @NWProgressive, @PortReform, @ProChoiceWA, @SeaTransitBlog, @SeattleGreenBag, @SoundTransit, @TownHallSeattle, @WACSeattle, @WAIDF, @WashingtonBus, @WCVoters
And of course, the state parties: @WAGOP and @WashDems

There are probably some more great organizations that I'm missing; and hopefully organizations that are not currently online with Twitter will soon come online. As you notice this happening, please leave a comment. Thanks--
--Rob ( @RobDolin )

Updated: 2009-07-26: Added CascadeLand, CivicCal, SeaTransitBlog (Thanks @BenSchie), WAIDF (Thanks @Hihankara), and WCVoters

Seattle City Council Candidates on Twitter

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:15:34 Z

A few days ago, I shared a list of King County Executive and Seattle Mayor candidates on Twitter. I’m noticing that this trend of embracing social media is running further “down-ballot” with many Seattle City Council candidates also on Twitter:

Position 2: @DavidGinsberg
Position 4: @Bloom4Seattle, @BrokenLantern, @SallyBagshaw
Position 6: @JessForSeattle, @MHKForSeattle, @NickLicata
Position 8: @BobbyForch, @MikeJOBrien, @Miller4Seattle, @Rusty4Council

I’ve ordered the candidates alpha by Twitter alias above. I searched for all candidates by first name a last name and by last name only. If you know of other candidates who are missing, please leave a comment. Thanks--

--Rob (@RobDolin)

Local Political Candidates Active on Twitter

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:23:31 Z

I have been very happy to see many local political candidates from the Seattle area using Twitter to keep their supporters (and detractors) up-to-date on their happenings. For the two races at the top of the ticket in Seattle, King County Executive and Seattle Mayor, nearly all of the major candidates are on Twitter:

King County Executive: @LarryPhillips, @DowC, @RossHunter, @FredJarrett
Seattle Mayor: @MichaelMcGinn, @Mallahan4Mayor, @NormanSigler, @JanDrago4Mayor

Many of the Seattle City Council candidates, Port Commission candidates, and suburban candidates are also on Twitter. If you think there are others that are active and worth adding, please leave a comment and I'll potentially update this post. Thanks--
--Rob (or @RobDolin )

P.S. I noticed this as I was compiling a #FollowFriday tweet for a weekend project I started about a month ago called "CivicCal" which is a calendar of Seattle civic events.

Blog entries about Windows Live updates

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 01:58:54 Z

Thanks very much for stopping by my personal space / blog. I usually blog here on the weekends. It's been a bit more than two weeks since my last blog entry here, but I haven't stopped blogging; I've just been busy with work and writing a few blog entries on the Windows Live team blog:

April updates are here! (Well, mostly) (April 27th)
Coming next week: Updates to web activities, contact importing, and more (April 21st)
The Space Craft is moving! (April 16th)

I'll be back to blogging more here as things settle after the current release. If you're interested in what I have to say (both about work/tech) and non-work topics, please check back, subscribe to my RSS, or follow me on Twitter. Thanks--
--Rob

P.S. I'malso on a number of other services. Just check the list of Web Activities on my profile ;-)

Beginner's Introduction to Twitter

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 23:55:48 Z

A number of friends (who don't work in technology) have recently asked me to explain how to user Twitter to them. Thus below is a brief introduction to Twitter. While I've called this blog entry "Beginner's Introduction to Twitter." If you're currently a casual Twitter user, you may find the later parts useful too.

Twitter: What are you doing in 140 characters

The basic premise of Twitter is that you post brief statements about what you're doing; and other people can "follow" your updates. If you're already a Facebook or Windows Live Messenger user, you're likely familiar with status updates. Twitter's primary content type is similarly a short text update.

Twitter's value: TXT

While Twitter has a website (http://twitter.com), a mobile website (http://m.twitter.com), and tons of client applications like TwitterBerry for BlackBerry, in my opinion, a big part of the value of Twitter is the real-time conversations that take place. And while some people may want to get a special application for their mobile device, I describe all of the examples below using the TXT/SMS commands that nearly everyone can send from their mobile phones.

1. Getting Started: Follow

Take out your mobile phone and TXT "follow robdolin" to 40404. You will get a TXT back asking you to choose a username. Reply with a username without spaces (ex: JohnSmith.) Unlike many social networks like Facebook and MySpace where you invite someone to be a friend and then they must accept your request; Twitter's model is one-way. Thus, you can "follow" anyone like Ashton Kutcher or Shaquille O'Neal without them needing to accept your friend request or reciprocate the follow. You can encourage your friends to follow you by TXT'ing "follow username" to 40404 where "username" is the username you chose.

2. Your First Tweet

OK, now let's post your first Tweet (or Twitter status update.) TXT a message of your choice to 40404. (Make sure to keep it under 140 characters.) Now, if you want to see your Tweet, point a web browser to http://twitter.com/username or a mobile web browser to http://m.twitter.com/username (where "username" is the username you chose in step 1.)

3. Finding people to follow

If you don't already have friends on Twitter, I'd recommend following CNN Breaking News (TXT "follow cnnbrk" to 40404.) It's a great example of how having real-time status can be really interesting or useful. You might also visit http://search.twitter.com/ and search for "#FollowFriday" to see recommendations from people of who they're following. You can also look at who one of the people you like is following (ex: http://twitter.com/friends)

4. @Replies

A convention has developed on Twitter where you can publicly reply to another user. You do this by starting a message with @username where "username" is the username of the person you're replying to. This @reply (pronounced "at reply") will only fan-out to people who are mutual followers of you and the people you replies to. To send an @reply, try TXT'ing "@robdolin Thanks for the blog entry about Twitter" to 40404. Note that you can use @username anywhere in a message, but only @username at the front has the special semantics of only fanning-out to your mutual followers.

5. Direct Messages

An alternative to the public @reply is a direct message (sometimes called a DM.) Direct messages are messages between two users that are not public. You send a direct message: TXT "d username message" to 40404 where "username" is the username of the person you want to send a message to and "message" is the text of your message. Note that you can only send direct messages to people who are following you.

6. Re-Tweeting

Finally, if you find someone else's tweet to be really insightful (or funny) and want to share it, you can re-tweet (or RT) it. For example, try TXT'ing "RT @robdolin Beginner's Introduction to Twitter posted at http://blog.robdolin.com/" to 40404.

7. Leave

If someone you're following is getting too chatty (or you're running out of TXT's in your service plan), you can TXT "leave username" to 40404 and you will stop following that person.

Hopefully this blog entry has helped you understand the basics (and beyond) of how to user Twitter. If you have questions, suggestions, or feedback for a later blog entry, please leave a comment (or @reply.) Take care--

--Rob

Blog | Twitter

Windows Live “What’s New” update types: Shared Favorites

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 13:36:35 Z

Sometimes when you’re browsing the web, you come across a website that you think is so great, you want to share it with your friends. One great way to do this is to add the site to your “Shared favorites” on Windows Live and then your friends will see the site when they view What’s New with their network in Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Hotmail, on the Windows Live suite home, and when they view your Windows Live profile. (BTW, this blog entry continues the series on What’s New in Windows Live.)

The easiest way that I’ve found to add Shared Favorites is to install the Windows Live Toolbar and then click the “Share” tab:

You have the option to enter a “Description” as I did above or you can leave the link as-is.

When you click the [Share] button, the web page will be added to your “Shared Favorites” folder on Windows Live SkyDrive (which is permissioned to your network (as opposed to public) by default.)

People who have access to your shared favorites folder will then see a What’s New update about the website that you shared in What’s new with their network or when visiting your profile:

And since the shared favorite is handled as a .url file in a folder on SkyDrive, the people with whom you’re sharing your favorites will be able to comment on your shared favorite:

Finally, I should mention that you can change your settings to be more or less open:

You can change the permissions on your shared favorites folder at: https://skydrive.live.com/editpermissions.aspx/.SharedFavorites.
For example, I’m now sharing my shared favorites with Everyone.
You can choose if you want people to be able to comment on any of your SkyDrive files at: https://skydrive.live.com/commentoptions.aspx

Thanks very much for stopping by. You can read more in the series on What’s New in Windows Live at http://bit.ly/aboutwn and read more from my blog at http://blog.robdolin.com/. Thanks again--
--Rob

Windows Live Tags: clubhouse, Hotmail, Messenger, SkyDrive, Spaces, Toolbar, How-to

Technorati Tags: Windows Live,What's New,social computing,news feed,personalized news,LifeStreaming,Microsoft,social networking,technology,social software,social aggregation,shared favorites,bookmarks

Five ways to get the most out of the Facebook News Feed redesign

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 16:06:47 Z

There’s been some recent grumbling about Facebook’s redesign of its news feed feature. Personally, I think it's an exciting opportunity for Facebook users to have a better news feed experience. As an avid user of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, and of course Windows Live, I’ve got a few tips for people interested in getting the most value out of the new changes.

1. Use Filters (left nav) – One of the biggest changes with the redesign is that now seemingly every update is available in the News Feed so if you have a bunch of active friends, it may feel overwhelming. This is where the filters on the left nav are super useful.

I’ve got hundreds of Facebook friends; you probably do too. But when I’m browsing the feed, I might only want to see activities from a particular set of people. Facebook provides a number of filters to support this:

Friend Lists - Above, I’ve created friend lists for a few groups including “NTHS” for people I went to high school with. This way, I can filter the feed to see what my high school friends are up to. You can create friend lists as part of accepting friend requests; and you can also do so via the “Friends” tab at the top of the page
Networks – Above, “Seattle, WA” is the regional network I’m a member of. Unlike friend lists which require set-up, Networks just happen as users affiliate themselves with where they live, work, and went to school.
Public Profiles – If I want to see updates from the Pages of my favorite products, tv shows, brands, politicians, etc. they show-up here.
Update Types - “Photos", “Links”, “Video”, etc. are update types. If I’m curious to browse videos or links that my friends are recommending, I can go to these filters. These seem to be by Facebook application so I can also filter to Twitter, Last.fm, or other update types

2. Share (top center) – The new “Share” control (I think Facebook is calling it “The Publisher” is a really convenient way to quickly publish an update whether it’s just status, a photo, a link, or more:

In addition to this control, if you’re someone who shares content on other sites like you have a blog (with RSS), post photos on Flickr, or publish links on StumbleUpon, you can have Facebook publish these (similar to Windows Live Web Activities or FriendFeed.) To get set-up, go to your Profile and click the “* Settings” button under [Share]:

In addition to these Facebook-supported “Imported Stories”, you can also add Applications that will publish stories. Two I would recommend are:

3. Publish via Mobile (TXT FBOOK) – Sharing what you’re up to isn’t just interesting when you’re in front of your computer; it’s often most interesting when you’re out and about. Facebook (at least in the USA) has a SMS short code (FBOOK or 32665) so you can update your status by sending a TXT.

You can also add the aforementioned Twitter application, update your status on Twitter, and it will get sync’d to Facebook.

4. View Highlights (right) – Now that the News Feed shows ALL updates, it’s nice to have a place to see the popular updates; like which groups your friends are joining or which photos are getting a bunch of comments from your network. The “Highlights” section on the right shows this.

5. Comment and Like (inline) – It’s always nice to get a positive comment of encouragement (or even just the one-click “Like” action to know that other people saw your update. Return the favor to your friends by commenting and like’ing their updates. You may help the good ones get into the Highlights section too.

As usual, thanks very much for reading and if you have a comment, question, or suggestion, please leave a comment. Thanks much--
--Rob

What’s the difference between Twitter and Facebook

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:47:59 Z

My friend Michael recently asked me this question and I thought it might be worthy of a blog post especially as my of my friends start finding value in Twitter.

Both keep a list of your status updates (ex: http://twitter.com/robdolin and http://www.facebook.com/people/Rob-Dolin/10704705) and a stream of status updates from your social network (http://twitter.com/home and http://www.facebook.com/.) IMHO, this functionality of a profile page with the actions of an individual user and a home (or network/colleagues/friends) page with the aggregated news from the people a user is interested in are key engagement aspects of a people-centric social networking service (of which Facebook and Twitter (and Windows Live) are examples.

There are a number of smaller differences between the two services, but below are what I see as the key differences:

Content types – Twitter is focused on a single content type: status updates of 140 characters or fewer. Facebook supports a multitude of content types including photos, notes (blog entries), video, shared links, and status.
Relationship model – Twitter’s relationship model is based on one-way connections between people. I may follow Dare Obasanjo, but Dare does not necessarily need to follow me. When I follow Dare, he gets a notification that I’m following him, but there is no pending action required of Dare to either accept or decline/ignore the relationship. Facebook’s model (as of this writing) is based on two-way connections. Thus, when I ask someone to be my “friend” on Facebook, (s)he gets a pending request to become friends and can either accept or ignore.
Commenting – Facebook allows commenting on individual updates on a user’s “wall” (formerly mini-feed.) Twitter support @replies when a user references another user, but these are not specific to an update. Facebook also supports commenting on an individual’s profile via a “wall post” and provides a convenient “wall-to-wall” view where you can see profile comments between two users. In general, how the services commenting compares seems to follow the pattern that twitter focuses on nailing the simple while Facebook is both more robust and also more complex.
Target media – While both services have web, mobile web, SMS, and API interfaces, I believe that Twitter has the far superior SMS interface and Facebook has the far superior web interface. Facebook’s functionality to inline comment and (recently added) like individual updates is great for the web. Twitter’s ability to TXT “follow robdolin” to 40404 and instantly get started is a big boon for mobile use. Twitter also allows follow without getting SMS updates which is great for keeping in touch with people you’re interested in who seem to have twitterrhea.

Personally, I added the Twitter application to Facebook and thus when I update Twitter (which is is easy as sending a TXT to 40404), it also updates my Facebook status. Facebook mobile has similar functionality (under the short SMS code FBOOK), but I find Twitter’s SMS interface language more intuitive.

I hope that you’ll try using Facebook and Twitter (and of course Windows Live :) ) and if you have suggestions for areas I’ve missed or feedback how you think Windows Live could learn from both of these services, please leave a comment.

Thanks--
--Rob

P.S. As you may know, you can add twitter to Windows Live via http://profile.live.com/webactivities/

Online memories extending beyond people and time

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:03:42 Z

Three happenings hit me last week that reminded me of how long events/memories/images of the near and distant past can have lives long beyond the few moments that they are experienced and spread way beyond the people who experience them.

One of my grade school classmates is posting class pictures from Facebook and tagging them with the people he has reconnected with. After our 10-year HS reunion, a bunch of us reconnected and I give kudos to Alex who has dug-up and scanned a bunch of photos like early class pictures and tagged them with the people shown. On one hand, it's a kick to see awkward 3rd grade class photos and to be able to click-through to many of the people to see where they are now.
My HS youth group advisor recently posted a link to a blog post one of his friends wrote about a road trip they were on in 1985 from their cornfield college in Illinois to Memphis, TN to visit the grave of Elvis. On one hand, it was awesome to read the story of a friend's college experience. On the other had, I wonder if it would have read different if I had been reading it a dozen years ago when he was my youth group advisor; or if it had been posted shortly after the trip was taken.
danah boyd gave a lecture about how young people are negotiating technologies for communication like IM and Social Networking services and addressing challenges around the length of time that content will be around (potentially forever) and the scope of the viewership (potentially public with the ease at which digital text, images, and video can be copied.)

As more and more content gets posted online (and is search-able), there are of course challenges in how people manage their images. (Ex: Michael Phelps.) But I think even more interesting will be how the collective community judges actions that many people know happen (like underage drinking.) I would imagine that nearly everyone involved looks back fondly on the 1985 road trip with almost 25 years of hindsight; but I wonder what the impression would be if the pictures had been posted contemporaneously.

As more and more of our lives are documented online (whether by us or our friends), I hope that we'll be able to collectively recognize the value in sharing the memories and reconnecting with faded friendships; as well as not judge others by standards we would not have imposed prior to the availablity of the technology.

Tip: How to get to a Profile given a Space alias

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 06:56:42 Z

When the new Windows Live Profiles (ex: http://cid-3c8ca60f8f925fec.profile.live.com/) launched a few months ago, one of the complaints I remember hearing was folks saying that these were not easy to navigate since no one remembers their "HexCID" (3c8ca60f8f925fec above.)

When I wanted to go to someone's profile, I had been going to their space (ex: http://robdolin.spaces.live.com/) and then clicking the "<name>'s profile" link at the top left. However, I just realized that there's a convenient redirect at http://<space_alias>.spaces.live.com/recent/ that will point to a user's profile. Thus, if you click http://robdolin.spaces.live.com/recent/, you'll get redirected to my profile at: http://cid-3c8ca60f8f925fec.profile.live.com/.

FWIW--
--Rob

P.S. I have found that our people search has vastly improved in the last few months too. I'd encourage you to try it by typing the name of a friend in the "Search people or web" box (top right) or by visiting http://profile.live.com/results.aspx.

Is Google (Blogger) deleting the blog posts of its users?

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 17:34:56 Z

I just saw this story (courtest of Social Median) and I'm wondering what's up?

from: http://www.inquisitr.com/17533/breaking-google-deleting-music-blogger-posts/

There is a nervous chill going through the music industry bloggers corner of the larger blogosphere and it has to do with posts of theirs just disappearing. Literally one minute they are there and the next minute they are gone. LA Weekly is reporting on the story that the bloggers that are being affected are all using Google’s Blogger platform which needless to say has a lot of music bloggers looking for new homes.

I'd welcome a comment with a pointer to more details as things unfold.

Welcome

Sat, 29 Jul 2006 15:59:24 Z

Connect with Rob

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:36:12 Z

Favorite Movies

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 16:52:46 Z

Country

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 17:10:03 Z

Chillin'

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 17:14:46 Z

Technology

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 19:54:02 Z

Fiction

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 19:55:19 Z

Sports

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Strategy

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My Blog Photos

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 15:36:48 -0700

Beau vs. the Octopus

Sat, 05 Aug 2006 17:30:02 -0700

Blog Images

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 14:57:56 -0700

Blog Images (2)

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 11:45:30 -0800

Della

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 05:57:40 -0800

Searching Spaces

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 08:38:57 -0700

What's New

Thu, 21 Sep 2006 14:51:14 -0700

11/19/2007

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:51:42 -0800

Rob Dolin's space

What I installed on my home Windows 7 PC

Introduction to GroupTweet

Three Screens and a Cloud should be Five Screens and a Cloud

How to add Bing to the Opera web browser

Does politics belong in online reviews?

Windows Live Embraces the Activity Streams Open Standard

Choosing a text search engine for the pictures

Dear comment spammer: Please leave a comment ;)

Firefox: Well, this is embarrassing.

Local (Seattle) Political and Advocacy Groups on Twitter

Seattle City Council Candidates on Twitter

Local Political Candidates Active on Twitter

Blog entries about Windows Live updates

Beginner's Introduction to Twitter

Windows Live “What’s New” update types: Shared Favorites

Five ways to get the most out of the Facebook News Feed redesign

What’s the difference between Twitter and Facebook

Online memories extending beyond people and time

Tip: How to get to a Profile given a Space alias

Is Google (Blogger) deleting the blog posts of its users?

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My Blog Photos

Beau vs. the Octopus

Blog Images

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Della

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What's New

11/19/2007