Archive for the “Internet” Category

Sarah Perez over at ReadWriteWeb wrote a great article today and social media, and the time spent using it by people.  She took an “unscientific” poll on Twitter and came up with some really interesting responses.  Check out the full article on ReadWriteWeb.

Link: Real People Don’t Have Time for Social Media

If you spend any amount of time on the Internet then I would probably bet you have be subjected to some form of talk about social networks.  Heck, even here on WinCustomize and JoeUser I regularly talk about the usefulness of such networks.  We have a growing group on Facebook about desktop customization, and several of us use Twitter as well.

With all these current networks, and more popping up all the time, it can be difficult to keep track of them all.  I use quite a few of these networks for both personal and work use, and I wanted to share a few tips on how I manage some of the more popular ones.

• FriendFeed is one of the hottest new sites around, and it’s generating quite a buzz.  FriendFeed lets you keep update to date with the happening of all your subscribed friends, favorite bloggers, etc.  It will pull updates from services like Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, Digg, and a bunch more.  It also allows users to comment on your postings, and see updates posted from your friends as well.   You can see my feed here.
  
• Socialthing! is another website that does a similar function, but I think it has a much cleaner interface.  Socialting! is still an invite only service, and I do have a couple of invites to give away if anyone is interested.
  
• TweetScan is for you Twitter users out there.  It lets you search Twitter, and is a good way to find people with similar interests, or people that are just talking about you.
  
• Twhirl is an application powered by Adobe AIR.  It’s a Twitter client for your desktop, but the cool thing about this is it will also post to your Pownce and Jaiku accounts as well.  It’s also available for both PC and Mac, but my personal Twitter client of choice is Witty.
  
• Alert Thingy is another new application also powered by Adobe AIR.  Instead of Twitter, this app focuses on keeping you updated of your FriendFeed feeds, and it also allows you to post messages to Twitter.

So those are a few of my top choices on how to make managing your social networks a little bit easier.  If you have any tips or tricks, I would definitely like to hear how you manage yours.

Piracy, whether it be of games, movies, software, or music is a pretty hot topic these days.  On one side you have people against piracy who usually claim copyright should be protected and what people are doing is just plain stealing.  On the other side there are people who think attempts to squash piracy are against someones “freedom” and argue that piracy doesn’t affect the bottom line in business.

I have been looking through a bunch of websites that one could say the readers are more “supportive” of piracy and I noticed that what seems like a majority of these people seem to also be vocal in U.S. politics.  It also seems many of these people lean more to the left of the political spectrum, although I can’t find any data to officially back that up with.  However, I think it’s an interesting question to ask.  Does ones political affiliation and beliefs lessen or strengthen their stance on piracy?

Now before people get all bent out of shape, let me say I’m not accusing someone of advocating piracy because they are more liberal or conservative, but I do have my personal theory that one side is more acceptive of the practice than another.  It’s common to hear that people who are younger are typically more receptive to piracy than someone much older, but you never here much about their politial, or even religious, preferences.

My belief is people who are more liberal, meaning fairly far left, will be more likely to accept the practice of piracy.  Why do I think that?  Well first of all, far left thinking is that capitalism is bad, and anyone who makes a profit is somehow “evil”.  This also goes back to the reality that liberalism is more in favor of entitlement, and that someone who makes money somehow “owes” it back to society.  This creates an attitude of basically “I don’t care” and that stealing someones copyrighted material doesn’t mean anything because they are retalitating against the “greedy” industry.

What is your opinion?  Do you think an individuals political leaning affects their stance on piracy, or do you think it has no connection at all?

This weeks GFW podcast features Stardock CEO Brad Wardell as a guest, where among many things, they discuss the state of PC gaming.  It’s a great episode to be sure to download it and check it out.

Link: http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3148397

The much anticipated WordPress 2.5 was released earlier today.  This is a pretty significant update and a ton of new features were added, one of the most notable being the redesigned Dashboard.

There are just too many features for me to describe, so just check out the WP 2.5 blog post for all the information.

I updated my personal blog in less than 10 minutes without any problems.

Download: WordPress 2.5

Since the political season is heating up even more, and politics is a hot topic on Twitter, we have created our own account for The Political Machine.  It will be regularly updated with links and comments about both the upcoming game, and articles on the PoliticalMachine.com website.

There are also some great Twitter clients for both Windows and Mac.

• Witty
• Twhirl

Visit our Twitter page and click follow to keep updated.

• The Political Machine
• WinCustomize
• Island Dog
• DoctorNick
• Zoomba

I see that many blogs, including my own, use MyBlogLog to track visitors to their sites among other features.  One of the most notable features is the MyBlogLog widget that displays your recent visitors and other info.  I’m sure many of you have seen it on various blogs.  Well I just noticed today that they have updated the widget with a new look and new functionality. 

This was apparently updated in February, but there didn’t seem to be much talk about it, and I still see many people using the old widget so I figured some don’t even know about it.  To get your new widget just log in to your MyBlogLog account and click Widget, and configure and get your new code.

While you are at it, feel free to stop by and join my community as well.

Link: MyBlogLog

FriendFeed popped out of nowhere for me.  I hadn’t heard or seen of it until I saw a blog post from Robert Scoble.  With so many networks out there like Twitter, FaceBook, Flickr, etc. it’s sometimes hard to keep track of all the people you follow.  FriendFeed helps out by displaying what exactly your friends and contacts are doing on other networks.  Once you signup (it’s free), you just add as many of your own services as you like, and there are quite a few, and get connected with your contacts.

The interface is nothing fancy, but it serves its purpose well.  A clean way to view the activity of all the people you are somehow connected to.  I think tonight I got all my relevant services listed, so I think I’m all set now.  Feel free to add me to your FriendFeed list.

Link: http://friendfeed.com/sscott

FolderShare is something that I have completely forgotten, and thought that it just wasn’t being developed anymore.  However yesterday, to my surprise, Microsoft released a beta refresh of the FolderShare client and website.

FolderShare basically allows you to sync your files and folders among multiple PC’s.  This is a very handy feature for anyone who works on multiple computers and needs to have access to documents on all of them.  You can also setup sharing folders, and FolderShare allows remote access to your files.

A client for both Windows and Mac is available.

Link:  Windows Live FolderShare

Download: FolderShare

For anyone who has an iPhone, or an iPod Touch for that matter, I’m sure you know all about web applications that were designed specifically for the iPhone.  Apple.com has a dedicated section of web apps where people can submit their own, and it’s a great place to find some of the best.  The list is growing day by day, so I wanted to take you through my 5 favorite iPhone web apps.

1. Accuweather 

The included weather widget with the iPhone is nice, but it’s not very informative.  That is why I turn to the Accuweather web app.  It has a simple interface that you either switch to a 15 day forecast, or an animated radar image of your selected area.  It also has your daily forecast, along with a 4 day outlook.  One feature that really stands out is that Accuweather will display weather alerts for your area.

2. Tic Tac Toe

If you ever get tired of waiting for your dinner to get to the table at your favorite restaurant, no worries, just fire up the Tic Tac Toe web app and have at it.  The kids really enjoy this one, and it has a very simple interface where you just take alternative turns at tapping the area you want to mark.

3.  BeeJive

One of the things that really aggravates me is the fact that the iPhone doesn’t have any native IM application.  Hopefully that will be resolved in the future, but for now BeeJive fills the void quite well.  BeeJive connects to several of the popular networks like MSN, Google Talk, AIM, Yahoo, and more.  The interface, where has different themes you can set, is beautifully done and you will easily forget this is a web based application.

4.  Tip Calculator

Ever been to a group dinner, and have to sit around for 20 minutes trying to figure out how much everyone owe’s for a tip?  Well I have, and that is why this web app is in my top 5.  The Tip Calculator lets you enter the bill amount, tip percentage, and how many people it needs to be split with. 

5.  Facebook

If you like to check your Facebook account several times a day, then this streamlined version made for the iPhone will suit your needs perfectly.  You can view your friends list, profile, wall, and even update your current status from this web app.  It still needs some work, but it’s far easier than trying to navigate the full site.