Twitter: The Social Resource

My experiences with Twitter since beginning the blog have been very interesting. I have gotten more and more followers on Twitter simply based on what I have in my blog. Some might think that this is just, "Well you said 'iPhone' in the blog title so a small tech blog will follow you."

For some of my followers it is that, however today I got a notification that The Yosemite Blog was following me. This was interesting as I never posted anything about Yosemite in my blog titles, however I did talk about the place in my posts. And what does this mean? People are actually reading my blog.

Twitter is a semi-decent tool to measure this with. If people reply, retweet, or follow you then you know someone is actually paying attention, assuming that it isn't one of the Twitter spam accounts. What you get with Twitter isn't the typical "You got x number from US, y from Canada, most visited page was z," no, what you get content specific highlighting.

Content specific highlighting is a great way to get the opinion of what people enjoy based on what key words you can grab from their Twitter account and the connections you can make to your own blog, site, service, etc. I had always thought of Twitter as simply s social network, but it could even be a greater resource then one at first thought.

Just another neat way to figure out what the hits and misses are.

Updates

I'll be messing with the design of the blog for a while, so if you notice the difference and it doesn't seem "done," just know I am working on stuff. This won't be posted to Facebook or Twitter.

EDIT:
Blogger's tool is somewhat restricting, so when I feel better I'll seriously dive into it. Until then, you have the current layout, which is better than a lot of the newer ones in my opinion.

Offerings

During my stay in California, which by the way has been pretty cool seeing Sequoias and going to Yosemite, having my butt handed to me on a trail by mother earth, it was great. However once the day was over in the parks, the hotels weren't always completely truthful in their offerings.

Basically all of the places I stayed at offered "Free High Speed Wireless Internet", as is somewhat common now-a-days in destinations around the US of A. However, each one wouldn't really connect to the internet, or maybe it would but then be horribly slow and the connection would drop. I tested the connection on 2 iPods, my Netbook, and my Zune, all having poor results. It isn't until I get to a "classy" hotel like the Sheraton Gateway or Four Points by Sheraton Gateway that I have working internet.

Here is my gripe: If you offer something, please deliver it. If they had said they didn't have Wifi right off of the bat then I wouldn't have been as upset as I was, not that I was terribly upset but I like to wind down on the internet.

By the way, if anyone is good at giving a massage, I would greatly appreciate one.

That Was Just Day Two!?

This post may be a little disturbing to some people after "The Crazy Part," so just a fair warning.

As some of you know I recently started a job at a local McDonald's. It was the only place that called me back but they did it so fast and provided bunches of training, plus there are great benefits so I figured what they heck I'll go for it. Sure enough I got the job.

Fast forward to yesterday: First day and they stick me at counter during a rush. I'll tell you what I learned the names and acronyms for all the food quite quickly however the crew in the back was, as the manager said, doing "HORRIBLE" so our fast food wasn't so fast. Kind of sucked as day one but I figured they were just having a bad day and I would come in fresh tomorrow.

The Crazy Part
I went in for the breakfast shift this morning, meaning tons more acronyms to learn and it is a harder menu to take orders with then the lunch, since there is such limited space for acronyms and so many words to a breakfast meal.

It was pretty calm this morning and then this divorced couple with their kids walk in. I ring their orders up and we get them their food, no problem. Then about 5-10 minutes later there is this hitting and shouting coming from the lobby. "YOU TOOK MY BABIES YOU F***ER! YOU STOLE MY BABIES" and then the guy just kept hitting her, she was getting quite red from all of the blows and clearly very upset. The young child with them just kept saying "Don't touch me, Don't touch me" and was crying. My manager comes running out and calls the cops immediately. Other guests are horrified at the situation and one guy comes up to ask for his money back as he didn't want his kids to see that. Good for him, I wouldn't want my kids watching that either.

The cops rush over and take the woman and child outside as they are quite distressed. Then a cop comes back in for questioning to the guests who were sitting over near the incident.

This was all quite a shock to me and afterward all the crew members were like "I have never seen that before," or "That doesn't ever happen," or "Only once in my entire career with McD's have I seen such a thing." I also apparently looked rather freaked out as they (crew) kept asking if I was okay. It is a real nice crew over there, but I mean my first two days have been rather suckish. I hope it gets better from here on out.

Learn How To Treat Customers

Today was the day that GameStops got the new Xbox 360 S in stock. I called once early today and then a little later to see if it was in stock. I was told it was in stock so I rushed over to GameStop and found out they had just sold out -- or almost.

At first I figured it was just the way of things and I was going to put a reserve on a new Xbox 360 S. Then at the counter next to me there was a guy, we'll call him Jack, and Jack was trading in an old Xbox 360 in order to afford the new one, much like I did a week ago. However, it turned out he didn't have any video cables with his system so they wouldn't take it. The cashier ringing up Jack suggested to my cashier that if Jack didn't have everything they could let me buy the Xbox 360 S.

At this point I was pretty excited knowing their strict policy on trading in systems. However, then my cashier crushed my dreams. He asked Jack, "Can you run to your house and get it in like 10 minutes?", obviously not trying to help me. Jack said "Yeah" (of course), and then my cashier, you know the person is supposed to help you said "Or we could get a used one and pair it up with your system but you would have to buy it."

Well that is just great, all the meanwhile the other cashier was trying to help me and obviously saw that I should be the one who should get the system. It ended up going so they found a cable, Jack had to buy so he could trade in, and I ended up with no system. However I did get a reserved one for July 9th.

Still, that is no way to treat your customers, and on "tellgamestop.com" I left feedback that showed how I felt. I mean, if you have a guy who is ready to purchase the console right now and you have someone who it is very iffy on if they can even get it, are you really going to hold a console, which it was said that they wouldn't do, for some guy who has the possibility of not being able to get it? I wouldn't, I would have given it to the guy who had the cash right then.

People sometimes, you know?

Blog Kindle-Compatible!

With the new Kindle Software Update 2.5 it got me messing around with my Kindle again. Let me tell you how handy the new features of the PDF reader are. You can actually zoom in on your content and span across it. I do not know why this wasn't first included but now that it is reading PDFs will be much easier. I tried this out with a Latin Glossary, worked out pretty well. Everything scaled very nicely.

Other features which sounded more neat on screen then in use was the Twitter and Facebook integration.

How I Understood It:
Full integration with Twitter and Facebook. Update your statuses wherever you go with a nice UI and read friends' posts.

What It Actually Is:
You can select/highlight text and then tweet that passage plus other notes to your friends on Twitter and Facebook. You could simply just give status updates and select like a space or something, but it just isn't what I thought it was at all. Also it took a long time to send the update out, which I wasn't too pleased with, then it gives you this long URL. You can check out my tweet from Kindle here.

A horse of course. Kindle testing http://amzn.com/k/2UTMI7BCLAZIY #Kindle

While playing with my Kindle, I found out that my blog is fully Kindle Compatible, if using Basic Mode. It works okay in Advanced but looks a little weird.

By the way, those of you who clicked on the World Cup link for my blog, you can check out that service and make any web page musically beautiful. 

And to those who didn't see the World Cup link for my blog, well here you go.

Electronic Entertainment Expo

Also known as: e3.

The one big thing for everyone seemed to be "motion." We have to get our gamers up and moving, give them that next element! It actually is a pretty neat concept, and we can debate who started it all. PS2 had EyeToy which was an early idea of how you can use your body to game. Then the Wii came along with its WiiMote and let you really "control" those in the game.

Sony came back with the "PlayStation Move." This instead of having a camera on the end of a controller has a camera on the TV and it tracks a light. In #e3 on Neowin we were joking about how you could just use a lightbulb except it wouldn't have buttons. Sony stressed "buttons" greatly, we got a good laugh out of that. It actually looked like a neat product except for the 1 second lag time in the demos.

Then of course there was Microsoft's Kinect which is like a sophisticated EyeToy. Much more meticulous in tracking of the person and more than just "Oh you moved over here so now this board will bust." This is different, here you can interact with animals, become your character and determine how you move, or even simply use it as a controller free control station for the Xbox.

Can't forget the announcement of the new Xbox either, which I am getting. I figure someday I'll want a Kinect game and may as well have a "Kinect Ready" Xbox. Plus it is quiet and has a much larger hard drive. Now before any of you say, "Kinect works on all forms of the Xbox," yes and I know this, however I would like everything to just work better if it could. Which should happen for the internal wireless as well. If I had Kinect + Wireless N hooked up to the old Xbox Pro I doubt I would have space for much else.

I also got pretty jazzed up about Fable III and Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit. I love the Fable series and then I loved the older NFS games which is what this game seems to go back to.

Anyway, couple of fun things at e3. And I had a great time watching e3 with Neowin, we should do that again sometime!

Personal Space

I am fine with sharing space with people; we do it all the time. Think of on an airplane, on the bus, or even on a family vacation in your car. However, note the keyword here: share.

Today, we are on our way back home and we stopped at a hotel about 2/3 of the way home with a pool. I was so excited for the pool since it was more time with the water. I frantically search for my suit in the suitcase in the car. Then I go to my room and set everything down, put on my trunks, and then head down. I am greeted by about 3 groups in the pool. This normally isn't any problem, except when one of the groups decides they want to take up half of the pool.

Again, I have no problem with sharing, but leave at least some space for people to move about. Not to mention there were many dirty looks from that group as well. There were maybe only 5 of them, but they wanted to pass a ball around and ended up taking up essentially the majority of the pool. I couldn't go to the shallow end to swim since I have long arms and they would smash against the ground. Then other places had small groups together so there was no decent spot to go. These kinds of things can ruin a night.

It is that feeling when you are in a plane that is just a bit too small and you have a real large guy next to you. Or when you are talking to someone and they are standing just a bit too close. You are uncomfortable but what can you do? You can leave, and that is what I just ended up doing.

There is also "personal sound space," where either people have their iPod's/Zune's volume up far too loud, or someone is talking loudly on a phone. It could even be SOMEONE YELLING ON THE COMPUTER USING ALL CAPS. I assume people have common courtesy and really I believe that most people do. However sadly, you don't tend to remember those who do exercise it and you remember those who don't.

 Just a friendly reminder to respect people around you :)

Electrical Beach

On Amazon.com they advertise their Kindle with an image of someone reading it on the beach:

Now there really isn't a problem with this, just that would you really bring your electronic device near all of that water and sand? This is exactly what I see so much now down at the shore. Everyone has an iPod or MP3 player, they have their cell phones and aren't just calling but are using texting functions and other functions. Why would you ever use this in a place that is so bad for your devices?

Maybe it is because people seem to just think they should take their devices with them always and use them anywhere. Maybe it is because they are the types to just sit out and not take part in the water or sand castle building. 

I can understand a junk radio or something, but your nice phone or iPod? Also, I can understand a somewhat junk digital camera as well. That is just the way things are going, but as of today I'm not sure how ready our devices really are for places such as the beach. There have been some water-proof cameras which actually work quite well.

I feel that it would be nice to take that new step in mobile devices to let you really bring it anywhere, on one side it would let you stay connected anywhere. Some might see that as a bad thing, but like it or not that is where we are headed. The first main company to introduce an amazing Earth-proof product will be the new leaders. There is no doubt in my mind.

Advertising

Today on the beach I was just sitting there and in case you aren't familiar with how Myrtle Beach works with advertising, they have planes fly by with some sort of message trailing them. Today I saw one that said "$9 Sunglasses for .01c NO JOKE." 

At first that doesn't look odd, $9 for one cent right? Good deal! Now look a bit closer. 

".01c"

What that actually says is one-tenth of a cent. To write that so it would be correct as "1 cent" it would have been written "$0.01." I'm very tempted to go down to the shop and hand them a dollar and ask for their entire sunglasses stock. 

Anyway, when you advertise anything, have a few trustworthy people read it over to make sure that it says what you want it to say. Other examples are on the LifeAlert commercial where they have the Surgeon General/Whoever saying "And that's why I wear one." However in the quotes on the TV it says "I wear one too." It really is the little things, proofreading is important and there is a reason why teachers pushed that so hard in school.

Ubuntu - It is actually all right.

Ubuntu, most "geeks" know about it. It is a quite popular Linux distribution that has the single aim of becoming user friendly, yet still letting the "geeks" have fun with developing and customization, and well every reason in the past as to why you would get Linux.

I got the Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.04, and at first, simply not having much Linux experience at all, I removed it. I then went back to Windows 7. However when I woke up the next day I felt I just had to give it another chance. I went and did that and haven't looked back. Now note, I wouldn't use this as a main OS on my main computer, but it is pretty fun once you get into it.

Ubuntu has a few neat features such as a single notification area icon for all of your social needs. Now this is pretty cool and it is customizable. If any of those applications where people are talking to you need your attention the color of the icon changes and you can see who needs you and where. Social networking is very integrated into the OS, which really is a neat way to go. 

Then linked with your login is all of your instant messaging information, kind of like the Windows Live Passport being linked to your Windows account, as well as a service to let other Ubuntu users find you if you are on the same network. 

Anyway, there are bunches of neat things in which just about someone has made an app for it and it is different from Windows so you won't feel this is just a copy. Also, on the Netbook version they have this whole interface geared towards the mobile desktop and works pretty decently. Every application is put into a group such as Office, Accessories, System, WINE, etc. These groups are lined up along the side and it is just a simplified way of getting to what you want quicker. 

I have fell in somewhat of a computer love with Ubuntu.

Social Network Fiend

I have recently realized that social networks have completely changed how I use the internet and how I collaborate with people. After Digsby stopped working with Facebook chat for me I looked elsewhere. During this searching I found, yes I know but bear with me, AIM. The latest version of AIM had two major components integrated with it: Facebook Chat and this service called "Lifestream", which is all of your social networks in one place.

It worked. Getting AIM set up for Facebook was simple and so was Lifestream, everything was good except that I still had to run Digsby for all of my mail accounts, and the built in version of Lifestream didn't work quite as well I wanted, so I had to stick to Digsby for these services.

After realizing that Digsby wasn't working properly with MSN/WLM, I just decided to drop the program entirely. On Neowin there is a thread about "Apps For Windows 7 In Mind." These basically show notifications and support jumplists, something at first I thought was a novelty but really ended up being quite interesting. I downloaded "Gmail Notifier Plus" and it works fantastically. You can preview your messages, go to your inbox, even has support for Google Apps.

So I was set for mail, but what about everything else? AIM's built in lifestream didn't work as I needed it to so I went off searching for a Facebook/Twitter client with Windows 7 in mind. What did I come up with? MetroTwit and Fishbowl. MetroTwit uses the "Metro" look and feel and provides a pretty nice Twitter client, has Windows 7 integration such as notifications, it was great. However no Facebook support, which is where Fishbowl comes in. I really liked the Fishbowl application, it was essentially a more user-friendly version of Facebook built with Silverlight. Only problem is that the notifications in the taskbar didn't show all updates and there were no options to change this.

Back at square one, I decide to download the Official AOL Lifestream client. It is an Adobe AIR application, but this one works much better than the built in one with AIM. When you get new messages it blinks the taskbar icon. Not exactly Windows 7 integration but it at least did what I wanted it too and told me when new items came in.

Somewhat tempted to come up with my own application, I doubt with all of the many programs it is that difficult anyway. We'll see.

Links:
MetroTwit
AIM
Lifestream
Fishbowl
"Apps With Windows 7 In Mind"