Posts tagged with internet

The Internet Killed Frank!

Rather than telling others what you think of them, you now resort to twitter and blogs to channel negative feelings.
Rather than thinking about how to help salvage your sittuation, you’re thinking “I am sooo blogging this!”
Rather than drinking her away, you run off to change your facebook status to single and hope some people notice.
Rather than a strong slap across the face, you shout out “I’m forever taking you off my blogroll!”
Rather than taking pride in standing straight, you feel comfort in your comfy chair.
Rather than trying to make a difference, you just decide to turn away, because there’s a lot to choose from.

Well, not you, but maybe you have a friend…

The Internet killed being frank!
All we’re left with is a mass of cosy, harmless sheep, some goats and a handful of people that will tell you what they really think. And, of course, you have a new term for that: “offensive.”

Well, not you, but maybe you have a friend…

Posted on the 18th of June, 2010 | 8 Extraordinary Comments

Your Privacy Is Still Null

Google Web History

You don’t want people seeing what you’ve searched for? But you searched for that! Are you ashamed now? Why?!

Government Email Snooping

While I don’t condone it, how can it hurt you? If you’re a gunrunner and you’re about to get convicted based on evidence found in your mailbox, I salute that! Other than that, nobody cares what colour your panties are! The police can search your house with a warrant; why not your mailbox?

Facebook Stalkers

You are aware that you can block people, right? Better still, think about why you joined Facebook!

Google Analytics Tracking

If most of the visitors from your site are from jail, or the States, or Japan, wouldn’t you like to know? If most of them are running Linux or Mac, wouldn’t you like to know? Also, you like it when a site caters better to your needs, right? You like it when they give you more of the stuff you liked before. How do you think they know all that?

Why are you so afraid of the amount of information about you that’s available on the net?
That information should not come close to defining you as the wonderful, complex person that you are! That information is just peanuts compared to all the feelings you can instill in another person!

And if that is not the case. If the amount of information available on the net accounts for most of you. If there’s little left to find out about you in the real world. Well, in that case, I’d say your online privacy is the least of your worries!

Posted on the 25th of February, 2010 | 7 Arrogant Comments

Tools for Spreading the Word

I’m talking about the buttons that read ‘save to delicious’ or ‘digg this’ or ‘stumble this’

People who don’t frequently tweet or save to delicious won’t start because of a huge button on your website. The ones that do, already have their own tools and MO for doing so.

The services that don’t provide cool bookmarklets or API’s or tools are the ones that benefit from those buttons. People appreciate the time saved, but are those services really worth the real estate their buttons take up? I mean, have you ever used Fark?

Why not make your site cleaner? Those buttons are almost always hideous, save for some very few, but very cool, designs. Plus, they steal attention from your own call to action buttons. Like ‘comment’ or ‘buy’

People who don’t use twitter or facebook or digg or delicious or what have you are simply nauseated by the constant ‘Tweet This’ call out they see on sites. Wouldn’t you be?

Posted on the 4th of December, 2009 | Feeling Smart? Comment!

Loneliness is a Bitch

Remember Tom Anderson?

He is the co-founder of the dreaded myspace thingie, but there is more.
When someone signed up for an account on the social network, they would already have a friend: Tom. I guess it was supposed to be a way to make new users not feel awash on a deserted island after setting up their account.

Don’t buy into that!

Tom Anderson only wanted to be popular on a social network. Any social network.
Since he failed on all the others, he decided to build his own!
He now has around 270 million friends!

Yes, that is how lonely some people can get.

Posted on the 26th of November, 2009 | 7 Exquisite Comments

How Software Gets Done

Today, we saw the release of the PocketFox logo. We’re all anxiously waiting for this mobile version of Firefox. We’ve actually been waiting too long. And that’s a problem.

It seems to be taking forever. This means that the developers are busy polishing the product, getting it up to 99%. It will probably be released then, almost bug-free. But what are we to do in the meantime? Ever heard of Release Early, Release Often? The sooner you get your product out to the masses, the sooner it’s used, the sooner you get feedback on it, the sooner you can focus on the 20% of the functionality that will please 80% of the users.

Worse is better, kinda like less is more, is a model that holds in this fast changing world. We are already used to bugs, aren’t we? We don’t care. We just want those nifty features. That’s why Opera has taken the browser market by storm. They’re pushing Beta’s to users. And we love it because we get to play with the new toys, not to mention have a say in the final product through our feedback.

–

When you’re taking forever planning the perfect first kiss, you’re missing the point. The point is that it’s supposed to be a kiss that you’ll enjoy. It does not have to be one to tell you grandkids about. You’ll have plenty of other stories to tell them.

In life, like in software, too much planning and polishing hurts. It’s quite rare that someone discovers a gem of an idea, spends years turning it into reality and being a total hit.

The things we use most today, all started as rough products, that were then blessed by progressive improvement. Twitter, facebook, youtube, yahoo, gmail, telephones, TV, pens, paper, houses, clothes.

It’s through progressive improvement that relationships will grow. The first step is to plant a seed, take some action, make a choice!

The rest will follow.

Posted on the 9th of November, 2009 | 2 Intelligent Comments

Thank You, Jerry!

Jerry woke up this morning with a chill in his spine. Last night was colder than usual, and he forgot the bathroom window open. He then ate hearty, and left for work.

Jerry works for a small time Internet Service Provider. It’s not grand, but it pays the bills and is what’s seeing his 13 year old through school. He’s not an office rat, because he doesn’t know much. No. He spends his time on the field. Rigging new houses and apartments or fixing faulty switches and cables.

It had rained. A lot. With hale. Jerry has had a busy week. All those cables knocked down, all those furious, outraged subscribers. Jerry had to face them all. And he did. He spent most of his work time outside, in the drizzle, in the cold. His standard issue winter vest was working for him, but you can’t wear mittens when you’re dealing with cables all day long. And Jerry likes the summertime more than anything else.

Jerry has not been thrilled this week. But, back to this morning, and when he got to work. The visit to the office was brief. Just to clock in, meet with his partner, the driver and get a prioritized list of places he needs to go today.

They start going through the list, fixing the torn up cables as they go. Park the car, pull out the ladder, stand up the ladder, climb up the ladder and up the pole, and start fiddling with the web of cables and wires and filth that’s up there. Four hours after starting work, they make their way to the end of the world, where one particular family has been out of an internet connection since Monday. They are pissed.

But, relentless Jerry sets up the ladder, climbs up the pole, yanks a few cables, plugs in a new one, and leaves without saying a word. From his window, Horia Dragomir witnessed Jerry’s brief display of skill and courage. It was over in matter of minutes, but the show was glorious. Horia then checked his router and, sure enough, it was finally working.

–

Thank you, Relentless Jerry for finally fixing my Internet connection.

Posted on the 16th of October, 2009 | 2 Smart Comments

A Shift in Social Interaction

When I was a kid, I changed houses a lot. This means I always had to make new friends.
So I became good at this. And after a while, I got really good at making people out, and realizing what they could/would mean to me.

Then, the internet happened. As I started spending time online, I could see some of the friends there as well. IRC, Mail, IM and then social networks were the means for this.

It was simple: you had a friend you could hang out with, they had an email account, you sent them emails. They had a social network account, you could befriend them. You could interact, in an eerie sort of way. And that was good, considering most people had curfews and had to be in at a certain time.

Now, things have kinda changed.

You can befriend anyone on any social network. You can follow anyone on twitter. You can read any blog you like. You don’t have to actually know the person. For me, it works like this:
Social networks, I tend to keep clean. I don’t like adding people I don’t actually know. On twitter, I tend to follow people not because I like them, but because I like what they say. So I do follow people I’ve never actually spoken to. And blogs, well. That is totally different, but I read mostly tech stuff, and about 20 blogs from Timisoara, which do belong to people I know.

Another thing that’s different now is that actually knowing someone no longer means you’ve met them. Sure, it’s better if you do, but it’s no longer required.
I’ve made friends on last.fm, with whom I now chat regularly. Only one of them is from Timisoara, and I still haven’t gotten around to seeing him in person. I got picked up by a guy from India because he liked my shared items on Google Reader. And he’s a great dude that did not want me to outsource my business to him. He just wanted to chat. I’ve been there to see how a girl made it in to Cambridge, though we’ve only talked and jammed online. I’ve ‘harassed’ people on their blogs or on twitter. Now we go out for beer together. All the real jobs I got, I found over the internet. The list goes on.

And this scares me.

I’m now in a very strange state, struggling to close down the virtual interaction. But then, with some people, it’s hard to keep in touch, let alone go out and grab a cold one. With others, it’s damn impossible, since they’re from different continents. So I surrender some of my principles, and keep talking, laughing and sharing online. Because, sometimes, that’s all we’ve got.

Just think about it. Do you remember when the phone used to be an impersonal means of communication? It still is, but it sure is not perceived as such anymore, now is it?

Posted on the 11th of October, 2009 | 9 Mouth-watering Comments

The Beauty of Typing More

Well, that’s all gone to shit.

After reading Atwood’s tweet: “even Hungarians are not using hungarian notation any more.”[sic] — I got to thinking.
People have stopped writing properly.

I know what Hungarian Notation is, sillies. And I know it’s has nothing to do with grammar or spelling things right. But then, few things today have to do with proper spelling. And I’m not talking about English, either. I’m talking about mother tongues. The beautiful ones, with funny letters and groovy sounds.

Languages will tildes,breves, carons, cedillas, circles and other diacritics. Those are the ones I’m talking about. They’re not dying. Their writing is.
The process itself is called Romanization. It basically means that you can only use the letters found on standard qwerty keyboards plus a few French-ish letters.

The Romanians have long adopted this trend. Now, most of our online writing would sound funny if read out loud and with no interpretation. The Hungarians too have fallen to this group. It’s understandable, since their letters are damn funny and tough to type. The Dutch, too. Their cosmopolitanism is what caused that stroked out o to vanish from the online. And the French? Well, they’ve been eager to leave all those damn accents behind since the day they were forced to start using them.

The Ruskies, zhe Germans, the Norse and the Asians have yet to be Romanized. And that’s good!
It makes inter-cultural communication a bitch, but it’s well worth it. People will have to study, translators will be hired, eyes will be pleased. That’s what the Japanese say when they’re asked why they don’t switch to the Latin charset: ‘Ours is so damn prettier!’

Granted, adding the special letters is cumbersome, at best. And sometimes, the wrong letters are added. Sometimes we’re just too lazy to switch between keyboard layouts. Sometimes, money gets printed with the wrong diacritics because of bad character support on Macs. Some bastards will write in English because they just feel like it.

Whatever our excuse is, it stands. But we’re still on a very slippery slope.

And yeah, Jeff Atwood’s twitter account is @codinghorror. A must-follow for any developer.

Posted on the 30th of September, 2009 | 6 Sexy Comments