Thoughts

  • December 27, 2006

    Facebook vs. MySpace II

    The Showdown

    This is part 2 of a 3 part series that started here.

    Add-Ons

    Since joining Facebook and Myspace, both sites have added a number of features. Facebook has made major advancements in features and technologies, using the latest programming languages and web standards. I have also written multiple posts on the new features. Some of the more notable ones are the photo albums, the notes and the API. The photos I love because I like taking photos, but don’t want to post friend pics on my Flickr site. With the Facebook Albums, I can organize and add photos, and tag friends. And I can add way more than on MySpace. AND with Facebook’s built in Java unloader, I don’t have to do it 1 at a time. The Facebook Notes allow me to add thoughts and (more importantly) import my posts from this blog to my facebook profile. While I haven’t used the API yet, it’s nice to know that if I want to build an application using Facebook, I can.

    There are a number of other features that Facebook added that I can go on and on about, but won’t. Just to mention them: The mini feed, Share This! and the Facebook Badge (mine is on the About page). As for Myspace, the add-ons are not as plentiful. I can add more than 8 friends on my profile page now! Up to 24. But I am sticking with 8. I can also add more pictures. I do not know what the limit is, but with no way to organize the photos, I wouldn’t want to add too many anyway. One cool feature is the ability to add videos to your profile, which I actually took advantage of. Other than that, not to much that I have seen is going on at MySpace.

    Sorry MySpace, but Facebook wins this round too. The people over at Facebook have been busy making things better for it’s users. In the last installment of this series, I will be talking about the user friendliness of both sites. Later!

  • December 20, 2006

    Facebook vs. MySpace I

    The Showdown

    After using both Facebook and MySpace for some time now, I have been able to see how they both have grown and what kind of things the have going on for the user. Since I’m a big ‘groups of three’ person, I will break this up into 3 parts- The Overview, Add Ons, and User Friendliness. The last topic will be the most in depth, since it is the most important. Right now, it’s time for The Overview.

    First of all, Facebook and MySpace are both social networking sites where you can set up a profile, friend people and search for people with similar interests. Facebook up until recently was open only to students at schools that agreed to have it. I started on Facebook last January and followed with MySpace in April. I did not like MySpace for a number of reasons, but joined to link up with people who could not get Facebook. Facebook was a nice looking interface that allowed me to link up with not only Scranton students(#), but any of my friends from home who went to college. I was able to link up with people I haven’t spoken to in a couple of years. MySpace was similar when I joined, though most of my MySpace friends are also Facebook friends.

    Facebook has a much cleaner look to it, with virtually no advertisements. I cannot say the same for MySpace. One think I really don’t like about MySpace is that it is packed to the max with ads where ever you go and it gets pretty annoying. The Facebook ads are nicely integrated into the design, and not in-your-face, but still noticeable. And Facebook offers cheap and easy advertising for us students.

    The final point on this ‘overview’ is that MySpace has so much spam on it, where Facebook has none. Everytime I log into MySpace I see I have a new message from a profile that was either deleted, or a message that looks like this:

    Hey Cuti, I saw ur MySpAcE ProFiLe and luvved it! Hit me up sum tym to chat! XOXO DevilGurlPrincess69

    As much as I love it, it’s horribly annoying. And the same thing goes for bulletin spam about porn and Viagra. If I cannot do anything on my end to fix it, MySpace should do something on theirs. Sorry MySpace, but Facebook takes this round easy.

    Next tym Time, I will talk about what new features both have gotten since I have joined. Later!

  • December 19, 2006

    Backing Up Data

    Computer

    Backing up data (or the lack there of) seems to be a pretty big problem among college students, or just PC users in general. My most recent computer, the Gateway, tanked on me a few weeks ago. After some tinkering, I diagnosed it as a hard drive problem, and prayed I didn’t lose my data. Luckily, it was recoverable. However, not all that much was on the line because of my back ups.

    Admittedly, I do not back up as often as a should. However, I do back up more than most. And I get a lot of, “What should I do to back up my stuff?” Honestly, backing up is just copying your documents somewhere else. Having a second copy of them. There are procedures you can do; but a simply copy and paste somewhere, like a CD or flash drive, will do the trick for the important stuff. I use an external hard drive.

    With an external, you can theoretically copy your entire hard drive. The way I have things set up (or should anyway), when I first got the hard drive I manually copied all of my documents to it. I also set up Norton Ghost to copy my hard drive exactly to the external. I scheduled my PC to do this weekly. Right now, I am also looking for a program that will sync files between the two drives. That way I don’t have to worry about over writing documents or losing any data.

    Setting that up will seem like a lot of work at first, but if you’re like me, it is well worth it. Later!

  • December 5, 2006

    New Facebook Features

    Facebook Prefs

    It’s been a short while, and I apologize for that. Right now it is crunch time in school with the end of the semester, and my primary laptop’s hard drive bombed on me (the third to do so on me, on as many computers). Right now I am on the back-up, which is not as good, which is making me less productive. But that is for another post. Now, I want to talk about a couple of new Facebook features.

    The first is pictured above. I just discovered this a couple of days ago, but it launched in mid-November. The sliding bars allow you to indicate what type of stories you prefer to read and who you want to see less or more stories about. From a user stand point, the sliding bars are pretty cool. I frankly don’t care who is in a relationship, or who friended whom today. The “Read More Stories” about a particular person is kind of creepy. The “Read Less Stories” is nice. From a programmer’s point of view, the sliding bars are really cool. They look nice and are really easy to use. It’s a smooth interface and it auto saves. Well done Facebook Engineers.

    The second feature is the Facebook Firefox Toolbar. This is a tool bar that allows you to quickly search Facebook, share websites you are visiting, and alerts you on New friend requests, wall posts, messages and pokes. It will also tell you when friends write a note, update their profiles, or when someone writes on their walls. You also have the ability to enable/disable features and add links to it. Over all it’s a nice little tool for the Facebook power user. I think this will make it so I am less often checking Facebook and more often doing real work. Later!

  • November 16, 2006

    Using GMail as a ToDo list

    GMail

    At the beginning of the semester I wrote a post about staying organized with tasks lists, etc. One method I did not mention, but might be most prevalent, is GMail. GMail is one of about 4 websites I check constantly, making it a great way to check my to do list.

    Usually when someone asks me to do something, I have them email me or email myself a reminder. That will stay in my inbox until it gets done. And I hate having a lot of stuff in my inbox. This coupled with email reminders from Remember the Milk, I usually know all of the stuff I need to do at any given time, and when my inbox starts to fill I know it’s to to crack down.

    What do you think? Gmail a good tasks list- what’s your method? Later!

  • October 12, 2006

    ABC does TV right

    The Nine

    Last week The Nine, a show about nine people involved in a traumatic bank robbery, premiered on ABC. I don’t really watch too many prime time shows, but I liked the premise and checked it out. This week however, I was at a meeting for the second episode (the show airs Wednesdays at 10pm) and missed it. Luckily, ABC keeps a video archive of their more popular shows online.

    Over at ABC.com you can view the current season’s past episodes on The Nine, LOST, and Grey’s Anatomy, among others. It seems other TV Stations offer this too, but I am very impressed with how clean and sleek ABC’s player is. It loads the videos in portions at a time, separated by three 30 second commercial breaks. Then you can resume. You can view this videos at any time after they are added, and it looks like that can be anywhere from 4-24 hours after they air.

    So if you miss one of you ABC shows, be sure to go on over to ABC.com and check it out there, assuming of course you have a broadband connection and flash. Later!

  • September 20, 2006

    The 2 year swing

    It is no secret that I am kind of a tech geek. What this means is I ‘need’ lots of cool gadgets all of the time. This also means I need the most recent gadgets all of the time. Laptops, Digital Cameras, amazing smart phones, etc. What this amounts to is what I call “The 2 year swing.”

    The 2 year swing is a term I came up with for about how long I will keep any given gadget. This summer’s new laptop came approximately 2 year after the tablet PC I had (and still have). My Treo came 2 year after my old phone (which was a matter of circumstance) and last good PDA, and now, almost 2 years to the day after I got my Nikon Coolpix 4100, I am in the market for a new digital camera.

    While I am very happy with the Nikon, and might end up keeping it, I want something more. As I get more and more into photography, I find that in some places my Nikon falls short. Most notably, in Optical Zoom. With 3x Optical Zoom, I am not getting the kind of picture quality I want at some places, like concerts. Last night while shopping around, I found the Canon Powershot S2 IS, with 12x Optical Zoom, and 5 megapixel photos. Based on some of the sample shots I saw, it also has a great shutter speed, which was a major player in me buying the Nikon. While I will need to try out the camera in a store before I buy it, I am looking for something very similar to that. Its only downfall is size, but that is a minor detail for me. Maybe I will see what my friend at Mekosh.Org will do. Later!

  • September 14, 2006

    My ‘System’

    Treo

    Over at College V2, Sean has an ongoing series called What’s Your System, where various people talk about how they stay organized. I have already posted some things on Productivity, but I figure I can talk about what I do.

    I rely heavily on my Treo 650 Smartphone. It is a Palm based phone that comes with all the standard Palm software: Calendar, Tasks, Memo Pad and Contacts. The calendar is the most important of the 4. All of my appointments and major assignments are in it. Everything is color coordinated and has a reminder for it. I can’t say how many times the alarm on my Treo has saved me. The tasks are also a nice feature for really important stuff because on their due date they show up on my calendar page. The memos and contacts are kind of self explanatory. Everything also syncs with Outlook, which I use when I am on my computer. The Treo also interfaces with a web-calendar made by Verizon that I can use if I need to. I have also downloaded a nice, free application for my Treo (or any palm based device) called School Work. It’s a cool assignment pad that you can take down your assignments with- it organizes them by day, week and month.

    Remember the Milk

    Though I did mention Tasks for Palm above, what I rely on for all my tasks (not just the real important ones), is Remember the Milk. It is a free web based tasks application that allows you to post tasks with notes, due dates, websites, time allocation, etc., as well as the ability to E-Mail yourself tasks. There is also a mobile version of the site that I access via my Treo. It really is a great site that I highly recommend. (hmmm maybe a full write up soon?)

    Finally, I always carry a small legal pad with me incase I have to jot a lot of things down. I usually end up transferring those things to my Treo, but the legal pad is good for meeting notes, etc. O yeah- GMail is piviotal in my life as well. I use it for email reminders, as a file server, and a conduit for all of my other email (school, business, personal, professional).

    Leave some tips or tricks in the comments if you’d like. Later!

    Update: This post is featured on College V2! Thanks Sean!

  • September 6, 2006

    Debunking New Facebook

    Facebook

    A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on the new Facebook stuff. Well it seems they added lots more, and there is outrage. I personally don’t find it too bad, and here is why.

    What exactly ‘new’ Facebook is offering is news feeds on when your friends update their profiles in any way. This includes adding a new friend, wall messages, new groups, pictures, etc. People don’t like that because it makes Facebook more “stalkerish,” to use a term coined by most of the Student Activities Office. But really, why would people post these things on Facebook? So others will see them. Facebook is an outlet for people to brag or wear their heart on their sleeve. More importantly, however, to share their information with friends. And the feeds are in accordance to your Privacy settings on Facebook.

    One detail I think most people are over looking too, is the ability to “Hide” a story. Since your profile has your own mini feed on it, you can click on the X on any of your stories to hide that story. Then, it won’t show up there, or on your friends’ main news feed. Also, unless people can see your profile, they cannot see, for example, what a person wrote on your wall. Facebook is really not all that different. It is just easier to get information you are privy too. There will, no doubt, soon be a way to turn off the feeds too.

    The main reason I like the new features, however, is because the people at Facebook are very smart, and from a programmer’s stand point, this is really a complex work of art. Without diving too much into the details I can tell they spent a good amount of time adding these features, and making it so it meshes nice with the now ‘old’ Facebook. I say give it a chance. If they take it away, you will probably miss it. Later!

    PS- I overlooked another new feature- the ability to support candidates in the upcoming mid-term elections. Go to “edit” next to “My Profile” and click “Election”

    UPDATE: This morning, there is an Open Letter from Mark Zuckerberg apologizing for the feeds, and announcing new privacy settings.

  • May 29, 2006

    New Job

    Tomorrow I start my new job as a XHTML/PHP Developer for a local company. While I don’t want to give any details about what/where/who it is (in fear of getting Dooced), I will say I am very excited/apprehensive. The summer before my senior year of college I am starting a job that has the potential to set me off on the rest of my life (life after school, that is). Well, that and the fact that for some reason I get very nervous driving to unknown places for the first time, and they are moving to a place that in my head is a terrible place to drive (not NYC). That will subside in time. I am more concerned with “Will I be good enough?” But I suppose they would have not hired me if I weren’t.

    I will less than likely write about work for the aforementioned concerns, but I will say what I can when I can. As for now, wish me luck on my first day as a psudo-real person! Later.