Facebook Drives Me Down Memory Lane

Today, out of the blue,  I get a phone call, a confident southern accent greets me with “Dah-ne-ese? (three delicious syllables) Do you know who this is?”

I knew that the voice was very familiar but  couldn’t place it at the time.  I felt old and anxious...  Then this energy-filled voice identified herself as “Pam” my old college roommate from a few decades ago… in rural Arkansas in the heart of “the Bible Belt”.

OF COURSE!   I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN! It’s only been forever since we spoke.  Pam said, “I found you on Facebook!”

Holy cow!

Facebook is a wonderful thing!  It allows you to quickly and painlessly re-connect with old friends that you’ve “let go” years ago for whatever  stupid reasons.  (“I don’t have the time.  We live so far away.  We’ve both moved on.  We’re not the same people.  We probably don’t have anything in common.  She probably wouldn’t like the new me.  I’m too tired to invest in “old friends”;  it’s hard enough keeping up with current friends in my crazy whirlwind of a life.”) Whatever the reason,  it’s not good enough, so you silently let things “slide” and there goes the friendship….for years…decades…  Yet, you think of them often and wonder what their life is like.  Are they happy?  Do they think of me?

So today, Facebook gave me the opportunity to experience an incredible trip down “Memory Lane”.

Pam reminded me of old girlfriends and male friends significant to the two of us.  Some I remembered and could actually picture their faces, but others were simply familiar names but no faces came to mind.    This weekend, Pam is going to our Alma Maters’  homecoming football game and will see several of these people.  At least now, she can answer the question, “What ever happened to your sidekick? (Deni-Bob as I was called by our closest pals, if they even remember me!)

I mentioned recently hearing the Carole King song “So Far Away” and recalling the time she & I hitched a ride to Memphis for a rock concert and ended up in Overland Park where we sat on a concrete wall, dangling our feet over the edge, feeling the cool southern breeze on our tanned skin, listening to music playing on a radio, watching the hippies, just talking, and being “Pam & Denise”.  That memory will last forever thanks to the everlasting musical cues.  Surprisingly, Pam remembered this experience with similar accuracy.

She said, ” I still have your old Jimi Hendrix cassette.  I found it as I was getting rid of some of my stuff from the ’60’s and ’70’s”.   (Today, my husband, a Blues harmonica player, would love hearing that ancient cassette.  He’s still a dedicated “Hendrix Fan”.  Me?  I’m more into Pink!)

Pam spoke of various college football players she admired “way back when”.  She was into the “jocks” and I was into the “freaks”.  I informed her that I still don’t know anything about football. She laughed,  “I know, but it was cute back then!”  Actually, that was one of the few differences she and I had at the time.  We loved each others’ company so much, our differences didn’t matter.

We were “two peas in a pod”.  We were innocent young co-eds, gullible, and total “Jesus freaks” or “flower children” looking for peace and only the good in the world and those around us.  We trusted everyone.   We each wore love beads around our necks.  We were good girls.

Pam had long straight blonde hair that she carefully ironed daily on our dorm room’s ironing board.   I was a brunette with long frizzy ringlet (permed) curls.  We both were skinny, gregarious, and attracted attention easily.

Our most common threads were our love of music, smiling, and believing in Christ.  We had so many friends.  Life was fun and full.   However, we both lost a parent during those two years together in college.  She lost her mother and I lost my father.  They were significant personal losses but our friendship eased the pain.  This, I’m guessing, was our real bond; the bond that keeps us forever in each others’ thoughts.   Now I know just how much we bonded.

So maybe we haven’t been connected for decades;  today, Facebook brought us back.  And it’s SO EASY BEING SOCIAL NETWORK FRIENDS.  Now, we can witness each others lives vicariously. WE DON’T HAVE TO TALK AND WE DON’T HAVE TO WRITE.  (But I hope we do!)  WE CAN SIMPLY READ AND ENJOY!

So maybe we aren’t the same young co-eds we once were.  I’m certainly no longer the “good girl” she knew, nor skinny or gregarious.   However today, we did find out that we still have lots in common.   Now, we are middle-aged women who still feel younger than we should. We both struggle to maintain healthy bodies via resistance to regular exercising and diet.   Our marriages are both lasting “solid” relationships even with their ups and downs.   And we both are non-child-bearers by choice.   It felt good to listen to a friend that shares my personal thoughts on life without children and grandchildren.  It’s a been a great way of living for me!  But most can’t even conceive the thought of life without their kids or grandchildren.   Ho-hum.

Now that Pam & I have re-connected, hopefully some day soon, we will take the risk to actually meet and spend some face to face time.  I hope so.  We would be foolish to let our friendship lapse again for whatever reason. It’s just all too easy to communicate in today’s social network world.

“GO F-A-C-E-B-O-O-K!”

TC: Measuring the Success of Social Games

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/29/how-to-measure-the-true-stickiness-and-success-of-a-facebook-app/ How To Measure The True Stickiness (And Success) Of A Facebook App   by Guest Author on October 29, 2009

This is a guest post by Nabeel Hyatt, Founder and CEO of Conduit Labs, which is the creator of Loudcrowd and other social games that help you experience music with your friends. His personal blog can be found at nabeelhyatt.com and he can be followed on Twitter @nabeel.

 

Yesterday, Facebook announced they are going to drastically alter the way applications can message users once again, likely throwing a wrench into every app developers’ growth rate. Hints of the coming turmoil appeared last week when Facebook changed the way feeds work. This caused enough worry that apparently Mark Pincus, Founder/CEO of Zynga, canceled his appearance at Harvard Business School so he could sit with his team and figure out what the impact would be to the viral rates of their massive hits such as Farmville and Cafe World. That’s not surprising, since getting posts in the feed is critical to continued growth, but the myopic focus on the “viral rate” by some in the industry has created an over-dependence on perhaps the wrong number.

 

(As an aside, those who complain about Facebook being an unreliable channel to build a business off of should try dealing with a retailer such as Best Buy. They will be happy to take a 50% cut of your revenue and then one week decide to eliminate your entire section of products and ship them back to you. Oh, and they’ll bill you for the shipping.)

 

In all the talks about virality the general focus is on the new, clever, and sometimes underhanded ways to increase your viral rate. What gets lost is the core message that, as Siqi Chen of Serious Business puts it, viral messaging tactics are just a force multiplier on the inherent viralness of your product. Or, in simpler terms, how good your product is in the eyes of your users actually is the most important thing. Viral messaging is just a way of greasing the skids on that user’s intent. It is an important later step, but not the root.

 

And how do we measure that intent? It turns out that in Facebook at least, the level of retention is the best public number to predict likelihood of a hit.

 

Real retention numbers for other people’s products are notoriously hard to come by, but in Facebook there is good 30 day retention data called the DAU/MAU Ratio – which can also be called Stickiness. This is the ratio of Daily Active Users to Monthly Active Users. For example, a DAU/MAU ratio of 50% would mean that the average user of your app is using it 15 out of 30 days that month.

 

It turns out this simple metric is enough to predict, with a high level of probability, the success of a product. For example, look at the correlation between the following set of Facebook games.

 

 

Here we have games that fit a broad set of criteria, in terms of brand association, demographic appeal, play style, and time since launch. See how the second column and the fourth column are almost perfectly in order? Despite this broad cross-section of games it appears there is a very direct correlation between stickiness and success. Let’s take a deeper view of the data.

 

 

For those who aren’t stat geeks, this is called the coefficient of determination (R2) and predicts whether two correlated data sets accurately predict future success. If everything lined up perfectly on the linear regression line above you would have an R2 value of 1, and then we could say there is a perfect correlation between Stickiness (x axis) and the Size of the app (y axis). Using these social games we have a rather astonishing “fit” of 0.77.

 

Stepping back, this data is quite remarkable actually, since you would expect Stickiness to go down as you get huge. It would stand to reason that your 20 millionth user, who might be experiencing their first Facebook game, is going to be harder to retain than your 1,000th. The fact that this is not happening yet, that no one has found the edge of users where suddenly retention metrics collapse, says something very powerful indeed about the potential size of the social gaming market.

 

But it isn’t the market size implications that are the big takeaway, the relationship between Stickiness and success is. This of course will also cause a messaging arms race around retention, and the prevalence of Free Gifts is a good example of that already happening. But just as with the viral rate it’s important to remember those are all simply tactics to enhance a products inherent retention. The clear inference is that building something users love to come back to is the best predictor of success.

Facebook Trying To Increase Activity

Facebook is suggesting that I write on people’s walls now. Really? Facebook thinks I need to be reminded of who to keep in touch with, huh? I notice that they’re suggesting people who have little to no recent posts on their page… I think that they’re trying to up activity levels, what do you think?

Makes sense, I read earlier today that activity metrics dropped big time after this week’s news feed updates.

Merubah Tampilan Layout Facebook

Bosan dengan tampilan facebook yang begitu-gitu saja tanpa variasi, tidak seperti friendster atau myspace yang bisa kita kostumisasi sesuai dengan kemauan kita. Kalau begitu coba yang satu ini, dengan cara ini kita dapat mengganti tampilan halaman facebook menjadi lebih bagus dan yang paling penting bisa dikostumisasi sendiri.

Aritkel ini saya buat untuk Anda yang suka dengan kostumisasi tampilan dan sekaligus memenuhi kebutuhan beberapa pengunjung yang menuju keblog ini melalui google dengan keyword tentang :
-cara mengganti layout facebook
-tutorial mengganti layout facebook
-merubah tampilan facebook
-mengubah tampilan facebook

Dan ternyata banyak sekali yang mencari artikrl tentang tampilan facebook. Setelah beberapa penelusuran website, blog dan group-group yang berisi tentang tutorial
mengganti layout facebook, saya menemukan 2 cara berbeda:

1. Merubah tampilan layout facebook dengan cara userstyles.org (untuk penguna mozila firefox)

-download add-ons mozzila

-klik “add to firefox”, installasi and restart mozilla firefox

-pilih tampilan yang diinginkan disini

-klik tombol “Load into Stylish”

-save dan refresh halaman facebook Anda

2. Merubah tampilan layout facebook dengan cara yontoo.com (untuk penguna mozila firefox dan internet explorer)

-kunjungi website Yontoo

-pilih “Start Installation”

-install Add-ons dan restart mozila

-pasang aplikasi PageRage di facebook

-pilih tampilan yang diinginkan

-lihat profile anda

Cara no.1 hanya bekerja pada komputer sendiri yang sudah diinstal add-on stylish
dan
Cara no.2 hanya bekerja pada pada komputer yang sudah diinstal add-on Yontoo dan pemilik facebook memasang aplikasi pagerege. Hal ini memungkinkan orang lain dapat melihat tampilan facebook kita jika mereka melakukan hal yang sama.

Sampai saat ini masih belum ada cara mengubah tampilan facebook untuk dilihat semua orang

Ingat Facebook tidak sama seperti Myspace/Friendster yang secara resmi dapat mengubah tampilannya sesuai dengan keinginan kita. Cara ini hanya akal-akalan dari pencipta add-on yang kreatif.

untuk mengembalikan (remove) tampilan facebook seperti semula baca disini

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So, come pay us a visit and check back often! Click here to visit us on Facebook!

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Taming the Social Media Beast Wrap-Up

Last week was a great week for us as we were able to connect with most of our customers and partners in Asia Pacific at Web in Travel, ITB Asia, and our 1st half-day workshop, Brand Karma Day.  We shared our thoughts on the social media phenomenon and how businesses can best leverage it to turn it into a strategic asset for their brands.  Below is a recap of the top 10 ideas that we recommend for brands in the travel industry who want to venture into social media.

1. Understand your true differentiators.  Sometimes what you’ve identified as differentiators don’t mirror what customers think.  It’s important to monitor what is being said about you and reconcile your customers’ opinions with your story so that the brand message is consistent and credible.
2. Maintain operational excellence around your differentiators.  Your brand differentiators can’t be temporary.  Unlike ads, social media has permanence.  Since what’s expressed about your brand is permanently searchable, changing the differentiators constantly will confuse your audience.
3. Set up your social network hub where your customers are.  We recommend minimally a presence on Facebook because it is the largest social network with over 300M users and is one of the top-trafficked site in many countries.  The volume and the intent (sharing, lifestyle) makes it suitable for just about any consumer brand.
4. Use content about your differentiators as “landing lights.” Guide interested consumers to your hub with great content.  You want consumers (current and future customers) to be attracted to and stay loyal to your brand because of your differentiators.  If the content is timely, all the better.  Of course, point #2 above is of the utmost importance.
5. Make fans not friends.  Fans on Facebook and Followers on Twitter give users the power to opt-in to being associated with you, which is exactly what you want.  It’s low risk for your fans, and you can stay focused on sharing the great things about your brand.
6. Engage, not advertise.  The impression ads and click-through ads of the portal/search paradigms don’t work well in this channel.  Think of your fans as people who are already or will eventually be in your CRM — and use your hub to please them digitally.  Share things that would interest them, do things that would please them, reward their loyalty, and personalize whenever possible.
7. Link to allies.  Chances are, brands in other parts of the world tout the same differentiators.  Why not ally with them by cross-linking your hubs?  The narrower your niche, probably the easier it will be to find non-competitive allies that can cross-authenticate what your brand stands for.
8. Partner with brands that complete you.  Travel is a holistic experience involving many components.  In your hub, introduce the partners that complete the guest experience.  Depending on the business your brand is in, points of interest, transportation options, accommodation choices, local eateries, and ticketing agencies are all possible partners to complete the experience your brand offers.
9. Respond immediately, and with empathy, to negative posts.  Brands, like people, show their true colors when they’re under attack, so complaints, though unpleasant, can be opportunities for you to shine.  Unless it’s a systemic problem, other fans will likely ignore the complaint, rise to defend you, or understand that the issue is between the complaining fan and you.  In all cases, they will appreciate that you did something, even if all you do is to request to address the issue offline with the complaining fan.  Doing nothing makes observing fans wonder what happened.
10. Develop a social media policy for your employees.  How many of the 300M Facebook users also work for you?  Chances are, quite a few.  Employees can be your biggest promoters… or unintentional detractors.  As you venture into social media, make sure that your employees are on the same page as you.

Parnormally popular?

This past week I went to see Paranormal Activity in theaters. I had heard so much about the movie so my hopes were pretty high– I had even heard that it was the “scariest movie ever made.” However, this movie is a joke. It’s completely fake and there is not much to it, and it made me begin to wonder if this is what all movies will come down to. But aside from my personal opinion, it was a $15,000 budget movie that has now grossed over $3.2 million. It is simply a couple video taping themselves with a spirit in their own house, with a few special effects. The Paranormal Activity trailer was a video of the audience screaming inside the movie theatre. This was easy PR for the movie– pay an audience to look scared. In addition to all of the strangely simple things surrounding this movie, it wasn’t even released everywhere around the country. Movie-goers had to “Demand It” and call and request that it be brought to their home theaters, another great public relations strategy for the movie, as I even thought that it must be good if it had been demanded to play at the Cobb Theatre. Paranormal Activity also has Twitter and Facebook pages and is staying linked in with the social media scene. 

Lifting of the stem cell ban? Is it correct?

All new streams of thoughts begin as heresies.The Universe has been, is and shall be despite our efforts.
Universe is teleological.Nature shall take care to balance.
As has been said’None can stop the idea whose time has come’.
Nothing wrong in going ahead with this.If Religious representatives object,they should remember their Religions have gone through this phase and if they had been blocked as they want to block this move, some Religions would not be here atall.

Tuesday Night Open Mic for October 20, 2009

Another Tuesday night  comes along for the open mic night and I have some general open mic topics and a couple that are directed at some of my many critics. You know I was reading the comments from my article from Monday morning, and I noticed that for about the hundredth time, I was accused of offering only scathing opinions of the moves from the left. I never seem to get an answer when I reply to this so I will be more direct. I also had a fun time discussing things with some folks on my wife’s facebook account, one of whom really got his feelings hurt when he was publically shamed for making a statement that “teabaggers are racists”. His friend who participated in the conversation seemed interested in honest discussion so I invited him here. I hope he replies. And of course there is the usual nonsense in Washington DC for me to comment on! So away we gooo….

Me & Facebook

မနက္အလုပ္ကို စေရာက္ၿပီး ကြန္ပ်ဴတာဖြင့္ ၿပီးရင္ အရင္ဦးဆံုးစလုပ္တဲ့အလုပ္က Facebook ကို အရင္ဖြင့္ပါတယ္ … ေနာက္ Mysteryzillion ၿပီးေတာ့ Mail စစ္ပါတယ္ … Facebook အေကာင့္ကဖြင့္ထားတာၾကာပါၿပီ .. ေသခ်ာသံုးၿဖစ္တာက တစ္နွစ္နီးပါေလာက္ပဲ ရွိပါေသးတယ္ … စစဖြင့္ခ်င္းတုန္းက သူငယ္ခ်င္းနည္းနည္းေလးပဲရွိပါေသးတယ္ .. အဓိက ဖြင့္ၿဖစ္သြားတာက Austrilia ေရာက္ေနတဲ့ သူငယ္ခ်င္းနဲ႔ ဆက္သြယ္ဖို႔ အဓိကလုပ္ထားတာပါ … စစခ်င္း သူ႔ Wall မွာ comment ေရးတာေလာက္ပဲ လုပ္ၿဖစ္ေသးတယ္ ။ အင္းေနာက္ေတာ့ Facebook ထဲမွာရွိတဲ့ Mafia Wars ဆိုတဲ့ ဂိမ္းကိုစကစားၿဖစ္ပါတယ္ .. အဲဒီမွာစေတာ့တာပါပဲ … Mafia Wars ဂိမ္းကို စကစားကတည္းက ေတာ္ေတာ္ၾကိဳက္သြား မိတယ္ဗ် … ဂိမ္းက ဆြဲေဆာင္မႈေတာ္ေတာ္ရွိတာကိုး .. Mafia Wars မွာ စစကစားခ်င္းတစ္ခုရွိတာက ကၽြန္ေတာ့္မွာရွိတဲ့ Mafia Members ကေတာ္ေတာ္နည္းတာပါပဲ .. အဲဒီေတာ့ ရွာေတြ႔သမွ် Fan Group ေတြထဲမွာ Member ၀င္ ကိုယ့္ Mafia ထဲကို join ခိုင္းနဲ႔ အခုေတာ့ ေတာ္ေတာ္အဆင္ေၿပသြားပါၿပီ … အဲ Mafia Wars မွာတစ္ခုရွိတာက Energy ကုန္ Stamina ကုန္သြားရင္ ဘာမွလုပ္စရာ မရွိေတာ့တာပါပဲ .. အဲဒီမွာ ေနာက္ထပ္ ဘာဂိမ္းေတြကစာရင္ေကာင္းမလည္း Facebook ထဲမွာ ေရွာက္ရွာရင္းနဲ႔ Racing Game ကိုထပ္ေဆာ့ၿဖစ္တယ္ … အခုေတာ့ Racing ဂိမ္းကို ထပ္မကစားၿဖစ္ေတာ့ဘူး .. ဘာၿဖစ္လို႔လည္းဆိုေတာ့ အဆင့္ေတြအကုန္ၿပီးၿပီး ၿမိဳ႕ေတြအကုန္လံုးလည္း Mastered ၿဖစ္သြားလို႔ေလ .. ၿမိဳ႕ေတြထပ္မတိုးေတာ့ ဆြဲေဆာင္မႈမရွိေတာ့သလို ၿဖစ္သြားတယ္ ။ ေနာက္ေတာ့ Vampire Wars ေပါ့ အဲဒါလည္း ေဆာ့ရတာ သိပ္မေကာင္းလို႔ မေဆာ့ၿဖစ္ေတာ့ဘူး .. ေနာက္ေတာ့ Farmvillie ဆိုတဲ့ ဂိမ္း Zynga က Launch လုပ္တာ သိပ္ေတာ့မၾကာေသးဘူး .. အဲဒါလည္း ေဆာ့ရတာ ကၽြန္ေတာ့္အတြက္ေတာ့ နည္းနည္းပ်င္းဖို႔ေကာင္းလို႔ သိပ္မေဆာ့ၿဖစ္ေတာ့ဘူး ။ အခုထပ္ကစားၿဖစ္ေနတာက Cafe World ဆိုတဲ့ ဂိမ္း အဲဒီဂိမ္းက ေတာ္ေတာ္ေဆာ့လို႔ေကာင္း တယ္ဗ် ။ ကၽြန္ေတာ္ကေတာ့ ေဆာ့ရတာေပ်ာ္တယ္ ။ အဲဂိမ္းနာမည္ကေတာ့ Cafe World ဆိုၿပီးေတာ့ ထူးဆန္းတာက မုန္႔ေတြပဲလုပ္ေရာင္းေနရတယ္ … ၾကံဳရင္ေတာ့ ဆိုင္မွာ ၀င္စားသြားေနာ့္ ။ ကၽြန္ေတာ္အခု ၾကက္သားေၾကာ္လုပ္ေရာင္းေနတယ္ .. Facebook မွာ ဂိမ္းေတြအၿပင္ Video ရွယ္လုပ္တာေတြ Link ေတြ ရွယ္လုပ္တာေတြလည္း ေတာ္ေတာ္ေကာင္းတယ္ … ေနာက္ၿပီး Facebook မွာ သူငယ္ခ်င္းေတြ ေတာ္ေတာ္မ်ားမ်ားရွိတာကို အၾကိဳက္ဆံုးပဲ … စၾကေနာက္ၾက status message ေတြမွာ comment ေပးလိုက္နဲ႔ ဟုတ္ေနတာပဲ ။ ေနာက္ၿပီး Quiz ေတြနဲ႔ တစ္ၿခား တိုလီထြာလီေလး ေတြလုပ္ရတာလည္း ေတာ္ေတာ္ေပ်ာ္ဖို႔ေကာင္းတယ္ … ေတာ္ၿပီေနာ္ လက္ေညာင္းေနၿပီ

Facebook gjør litt sånn som de vil

Det er ikke ofte jeg ser igjennom hva som foregår på min egen profil på facebook, men jeg må si at jeg ble litt sint inni meg da jeg så at JEG tydeligvis hadde postet noe på facebook, enda jeg ikke kan huske at jeg har lagt til applikasjonen en gang. Ikke kult facebook. Jeg føler meg nesten litt violated. Det var jo ikke noe farlig som ble lagt ut, tvert om, det var en film av to søte katter.

Tingen er liksom det at det er ikke greit når jeg ikke har lagt til den applikasjonen som hadde lagt ut filmen. Det er ikke gøy, og jeg liker det ikke. Det hadde vært greit om jeg hadde godkjent det, men facebook gjør så utrolig mye hva de vil nå. Facebook er snart blitt til et unødvendig media. Jeg tror rett og slett at facebook har blitt for kjent for en hver person.

Jeg ønsker helt ærlig at alle unødvendige applikasjoner fjernes, altså hva skal vi med alt det. Selv har jeg lagt til mange av disse eksisterende applikasjonene, men har ikke brukt dem siden.

Facebook var ment til å opprettholde kontakten mellom folk, jeg skjønner ikke helt hvordan disse unødvendige applikasjonene er til noe nytte sånn sett. Greit, det er litt tøft med noen av applikasjonene, men det finnes en grense.

Jeg liker helt ærlig facebook mindre og mindre, men jeg skal nok ikke slette den helt ennå. Jeg kommer bare ikke til å godta en eneste applikasjon, og jeg skal itillegg slette hver eneste jeg har. Så det så!

The Dow is at 10,000...Who Cares?

The 50 Over 50 Project is a ”Community of Career Advice”     for 50 folks over age 50 who are in a career transition.  

Summarize YOUR career dilemma in a comment below to gain job hunt pointers from this blog community. 

So the Dow Jones Industrial Average got over the psychological barrier of 10,000 points last week. I wonder if it will go to 11,000 this week?  Probably not. But do people care?

Well, I do care actually. And the investments of millions of people as well as the well-being of millions of companies across this great land do care.  So why the headline above? 

Last weekend, Seth Rogan of the Weekend Update skit on the perennial  Saturday Night Live TV show perhaps summarized the feeling of millions: Rogan mentioned how the Dow broke 10,000 and how 15 million unemployed people at home, in their pajamas in the middle of the day, who were eating Twinkies, cheered with delight. 

That isn’t a perfect quote but you get the idea. The talk is that the recession will end and the recovery will occur sometime in the next month to the next two years (it depends upon who you listen to).  I don’t know who to believe but Seth was right: Recovery or not, too many people are still stuck unemployed or underemployed and know the NBC TV schedule way too well.

If the Dow goes to 20,000 and there are still 6 people for every 1 open job out there, the unemployed just won’t care what the stock market looks like. Granted jobs are always a lagging indicator during a recovery because firms want to be sure things are improving before they add to their payrolls again. 

And the most strategic unemployed people WILL care about the stock market and the recovery. Because we attract what we expect into our life. And if we stay negative, we’ll keep getting negative. 

How about you? Do you think the economy is picking up out there and that there are more jobs now that the Dow Jones Industrial Average has reached this level? Or do you feel stuck on main street despite Wall Street’s success?

Share your thoughts below and keep the faith!

Paul M.

America’s Job Coach  

The Art of Defying Death.

‘On a misty spring night in 2005, I approached my apartment, on a tony block on the Upper West Side facing the Hudson. I felt relaxed and calm. Earlier that day I had attended a yoga workshop with a guru from India, then completed a writing assignment for a health and spirituality magazine about, as it happened, instinct — or antar-jñana, inner knowledge. I opened the outer door to my vestibule, then crossed through its inner door and into my lobby, leaving my back to the entrance. I got a prickly feeling, I don’t know why. I turned. There I saw, pushing open the inner door, an ink-black, gloved hand, exaggeratedly large, controlled and deliberate. It charged toward me. It was trailed by a body, the picture of death.’ NYT 14 Oct 2009
http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/the-art-of-defying-death/#comment-23701

Comment:
We do not think of Death normally as we are afraid to face its inevitability.Once we know that it is inevitable, our life, our ambitions and plans are fragile and shall end in a micro second ,we shall learn to be humble and more humane.We shall be thankful for what we have and not whine over what we imagine we do not have.
Purpose of Yoga is to possess equanimity both under pleasant and unpleasant circumstances,not conquering the fear of Death, for it is inevitable.

Wordpress Praise

Thank you thank you x 3294873

I cannot believe that I’m looking to the left seeing 100,000 views. I really mean it when I say that I NEVER saw this coming. When I first started this blog,  it was just a project for me. I wanted a place to remember my year in news. I never even intended to name it Yow Yow! That’s not even a word!

Thank you to all my friends and family for your support. Thank you to all the people who write to me on Facebook just to let me know they are reading it. It amazes me that people take any interest in what I have to say.

And thank you WordPress for featuring “Tinkerbell’s Extreme Makeover” on the front of your site. Why people are so facinated with my “makeover” posts I’ll never know, but in no way am I complaining. Thank you for hosting my blog and giving me a chance to express in words what I may never  be able to express in my life.

Why am I such an antagonist?

Do you know what I love most about being a mouthy broad who spent years honing her communication skills to a sharp edge?

Evil dunderheads with wicked and selfish agendas fear my words. I’ll comment in a Facebook stream and they won’t fire back. Because they know I’ll keep arguing and they can’t compete.

I LOVE that. 

And social media means I will always have a bully pulpit.

I LOVE that, too.

I’m a mouthy broad and — thanks to a lifetime enduring having my voice stifled by greedy corporations, nasty bosses, a sexist society, and a surgical mishap that paralyzed my vocal cords  – NOW. I. WILL. NEVER. SHUT. UP.

That’s all I wanted to say. More later. You know it.

Virus Baru Menyerang Facebook Anda. Waspadai Ciri-Cirinya!

Virus pada Facebook seolah menjadi momok bagi para pengguna Facebook, termasuk Anda tentunya. Para pembuat virus memang seolah tidak pernah berhenti mencari cara untuk menteror pengguna komputer dan internet. Jika virus selama ini belum diketahui menyerang pada social network, maka virus koobface diketahui sebagai worm pertama yang menginfeksi Facebook dan menyerang sekitar 127juta pengguna Facebook.

Virus Baru Menyerang Facebook Anda. Waspadai Ciri-Cirinya!

Bagaimana Ceritanya?
Koobface adalah nama dari trojan yang belakangan ini sedang getol menyerang Facebook. Virus ini juga terus merangsek menyebar di luar Facebook untuk menyerang situs social network lain seperti Bebo, Friendster, My Yearbook dan Bebo.

Microsoft selaku empunya saham terhadap Facebook tidak tinggal diam begitu saja terhadap virus yang disebut sebagai virus Facebook. Beberapa removal bisa mudah didapatkan dan didownload secara gratis berkatnya.

Bagaimana Cara Penyebaran Virus Facebook?
Penyebaran virus ini memang tidak secara langsung, tetapi melalu email yang memanfaatkan nama Facebook. Pernahkah Anda menerima email dari Facebook yang mengatakan bahwa permintaan Anda untuk berteman dengan seseorang sudah di setujui? Link yang disediakan tersebut yang kemungkinan besar akan Anda klik.

Bila Anda menerima email dari virus itu dan mengklik link yang diberikan tadi, bisa dipastikan komputer Anda akan segera terinfeksi oleh worm tersebut. Ini dikarenakan link tadi ternyata adalah link palsu yang isinya adalah worm yang menyarankan Anda untuk mengupdate Flash, padahal itu adalah virus. (lihat gambar)

koobface

Kenali Ciri-Ciri Virusnya!
Waspadai jika Anda menerima pesan spam seperti: avert_blog_koobface bila Anda mengikuti link tersebut, maka sebenarnya Anda sedang diarahkan ke salah satu dari berbagai host yang menampilkan pesan eror palsu dari versi Flash Player yang sudah kadaluarsa tanggalnya. Selanjutnya Anda diminta untuk mendownload/membuka file flash_player.exe yang baru.

Setelah komputer seseorang terinfeksi, maka virus tersebut akan mengirimkan pesan kepada teman dari si empunya PC yang terjangkit. Pesan yang dikirimkan berjudul: You look just awesome in thie new movie yang akan membawa si penerima ke situs yang memintanya mendownload virus yang diklaim sebagai update dari software Flash Player dari Adobe System.

Saya Sudah Terjangkit Virus, Bagaimana Dong?
Jangan khawatir, kunjungi situs resmi facebook di www.facebook.com/security untuk mendapatkan cara bagaimana membersihkan komputer Anda sehingga bersih dari virus. Semoga membantu

Pertanian maya

Ya, sedang dalam masa asyik-masyuk dengan Famvil di Fesbuk. Senang rasanya melihat tanaman tumbuh dari benih, tanaman muda, tanaman dewasa, lalu berbuah. Jadi terkenang dengan Harvest Moon: Back to Nature, yang berkali-kali tak pernah bisa diselesaikan.

Jeleknya Famvil ini cuma satu, mesti pake internet. Kalau kebetulan koneksi internet error, hasil panen bisa wassalam. Macam kemarin, sepetak besar labu dan padi layu karena tak cepat dipanen Juga setiap benih cuma sekali pakai; habis panen, mesti beli benih baru. Bagusnya, setidaknya ndak mesti keliling kebun menyirami tanaman satu-persatu macam di HM.

Ini betul-betul postingan ndak penting

Προσθήκη βίντεο στο Twitter

Cosmo.gr – Προσθήκη βίντεο στο Twitter
Τη δυνατότητα να ανεβάζουν βίντεο στην προσωπική τους σελίδα θα έχουν σε λίγο καιρό οι χρήστες του Twitter, όπως ανακοινώθηκε από την εταιρία.

Αυτή η κίνηση ανήκει στην γενικότερη στρατηγική της εταιρίας να αναβαθμίσει το Twitter και να κερδίσει περισσότερους πόντους απέναντι στο αντίπαλο «δέος» το Facebook.[next]

Make it personal

Social networking is great.  There, I’ve said it.

Connecting with like minded people on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook can be valuable. It simply depends on how you make it work for you. Social media defines McNak’s culture.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with Gillian Shaw, Digital Writer for the Vancouver Sun, and I was able to provide my take on how McNak deals with social media policies and the use of social media sites with our employees.  I originally ‘met’ Gillian on Twitter.  Gillian wrote a great article in today’s Vancouver Sun on this subject. Interesting read.

I had the opportunity to meet Gillian in person today at the SOHO SME business conference.  She was speaking on a panel with Rich Patterson and Shane Gibson – “The Business of Social Media: How to Maximize Connections Using Social Communities on the Internet”.

I had also ‘met’ Rich Patterson of NinePointTen Social Media and Patterson Brands on Twitter, and was happy to meet him in person today.  Wherever you make those social connections – whether it be on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN etc. – there is nothing like meeting these great folks in person.

McNak embraces social media.  It keeps us connected to our community, and keeps the conversation flowing.  It also provides another avenue for new connections.  It’s just nice to make it personal once in a while.

~Jessica Rozitis

Another Side Of Sarah Palin: Financial Guru

It seems that Sarah Palin has made another positive international splash with her latest Facebook entries. Early Tuesday afternoon Sarah released a strongly worded statement urging President Obama to make the right decision Afghanistan, and pledging to back him up if he did.

Later in the same afternoon, Sarah released an even stronger statement, with a very terse warning concerning our nation’s energy policy (or lack there of) and how years of continued energy mismanagement and counterintuitive policies have put our economy in a very precarious position. So precarious, that nations are openly discussing dropping the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

Her statement on the economy caught the eye of the London Financial Times which in turn caused Reuters to report this:

By Tabassum Zakaria

The Financial Times, the salmon-colored authoritative newspaper that is closely read by traders and other financial types around the world, had an eye-opener for readers this morning.

It wasn’t the front-page, four-column wide headline, “Obama’s critics pounce on falling dollar as fears grow over currency.”

It wasn’t the graphic showing a red downward line over a dollar bill.

The jolt comes at the start of the second paragraph in the top story of the day on the dollar, “Sarah Palin….”

The newspaper, whose articles can move markets, quoted the former Republican vice presidential candidate and ex-Alaska governor from her Facebook post on the need for energy independence. Palin links the dependence on foreign oil and large U.S. deficits to declines in the dollar .

“We can see the effect of this in the price of gold, which hit a record high today in response to fears about the weakened dollar,” Palin wrote.

Palin’s power for using her Facebook page to affect public opinion is not to be taken lightly. Remember “death panels” which turned the healthcare debate into rabid townhall meetings this summer — that phrase emerged from Palin’s Facebook page

Now in all fairness, the folks at the townhall meetings were already very passionate about the health care issue before Sarah condensed the insanity of ObamaCare down to two words, but it’s pretty clear that her ability to cut to the chase on any subject made a huge impact of the national debate over ObamaCare.

You see a lot of pundits that scoff at the notion that Sarah Palin is a force in the national debate using a networking site. They simply don’t understand, or don’t want to understand, the power of Facebook in Sarah’s media strategy.

Was watching Greta last night. She and her guest were discussing the phenomenon that is Sarah Palin, and how she uses Facebook. The one thing that hit me was their complaint that it was “one sided.” In other words, Sarah has her say, but isn’t up for “cross examination.” Of course, like everyone else, they were quick to admit, Sarah is effective using this method.

I guess I see it different than most, especially knowing who one of Sarah’s heros (and mine) is. Sarah is following the path the Great Ronald Reagan took after he lost his 1976 presidential primary bid, updated for the 21st century.

From 1976 to 1980 Reagan was “out in the wilderness.” Reagan, who was very media savvy, having spent a good chunk of his life in Hollywood as well as being a radio pitchman, turned to the radio to get his message out. Reagan gave regular short radio addresses combined with paid and unpaid speaking engagements to keep his message out there.

Social networking websites like Facebook have the same sort of impact today that radio did in Ronald Reagan’s day. People of all ages and economic classes are into networking now.

Sarah’s Facebook page is incredibly dynamic. You can check it any hour day or night and people are constantly posting well wishes, personal stories, and the popular “Sarah 2012!” rallying cry.

As of this writing, Sarah has 920,100 friends on her page, which is open to anyone to view, not just friends. This too changes hourly, as more people join day and night. This is roughly double the number of folks since Sarah resigned as Governor back in July. To put this in perspective, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who is also considered a front runner in 2012 had around 7700 Facebook friends the last time I looked, which was about a week ago.

The advantage that Sarah Palin has, that the Gipper didn’t, is almost anything she does becomes a media event. Within minutes of posting something on Facebook, the major media knows about it and reports on it. Doesn’t matter if it’s friendly or hostile media, they still report it, discuss it, and keep her in the spotlight.

A very savvy media plan indeed. Throw in the many paid and unpaid speeches Sarah will be giving between now and 2012, the upcoming book tour, and her pledge to help elect Conservative candidates, of which she has some 120 requests from so far (!) And the strategy looks very solid.

Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that what she posts on Facebook is dead on!

Yli puolet yrityksistä kieltää sosiaaliset nettipalvelut työaikana

Yritykset kieltävät sankoin joukoin pääsyn internetin sosiaalisiin palveluihin, esimerkiksi Facebookiin. Selvitys Yhdysvalloista kertoo, että yli puolet vähänkään suuremmista yrityksistä estää täysin sosiaalisten palveluiden käytön. Monet muut rajoittavat käyttöä tiukasti, kerrotaan uutisissa.

Suomessa tilanne on ilmeisimmin toisenlainen, koska työkulttuuri on täällä erilainen – ja Suomessa on osa työnantajista havainnut myös sosiaalisen median mahdollisuudet työssä.

Deep Inside You... Tube, con La Edad de Oro

No le había prestado demasiada atención a todas las opciones que ofrece YouTube hasta ahora que he tenido que buscar la forma de optimizar mi tiempo y recursos para subir los videos de La Edad de Oro.

El formato es un poco rígido y me gustaría que fuese más personalizable, pero aún así hay muchos recursos interesantes que pueden ser aprovechados como las Listas de Reproducción que ofrecen la posibilidad de ver todos los clips de un concierto en orden. Aunque el 99% de la gente las usa para hacer las más variadas recopilaciones.

Muy útil también me esta resultando la opción de subidas masivas, que me permite ir preparando videos, añadir la información y añadirlos a la cola de espera para que sean subidos automaticamente sin precisar de mi atención. Como soy un poco burro le tengo al pobre iMac subiendo sin descanso.

Así aparecen en el twitter las nuevas subidas de cada vídeo en YouTube. Completamente automático, pero sólo en inglés.

Otra cosa que permite automáticamente es que cada una de las nuevas subidas a mi canal sea publicitada en Twitter, Facebook y Google Reader. Así, cada vez que un nuevo vídeo ha finalizado el proceso de subida un tweet, una entrada en tu perfil y un nuevo feed RSS se generan y son mostrados en cada uno de estos sistema de comunicación planetarios. Ver los ejemplos en las imágenes.

Yo no tengo ningún control sobre como esta información es publicada, YouTube los implementa automáticamente y no deja personalizarlos. Estaría bien que se pudiese editar la información repetitiva para que por ejemplo sea en castellano y no en inglés. O redactar el propio usuario la plantilla de texto fijo que acompañará cada información que será tomada automáticamente de los datos del video subido.

Y así lo estaba haciendo el Facebook hasta que le dió un infarto cerebral tras una sobredosis de The Gun Club, The Sound, Nick Cave,... Pobre Facebook.

La verdad es que pese a esa rigidez y ausencia de personalización todo funciona muy bien. Bueno, no todo. Al Facebook parace que se le gastaron las pilas y dejo de añadir nuevas entradas a mi perfil. Supongo que un error puntual o puede que los videos de The Gun Club acabasen de fundirle los plomos a un sistema de redes sociales tan pijito.

La personalización del canal también es un tanto restringida. En parte entiendo que sea así para poner las cosas fáciles a usuarios básicos, pero debería haber un modo avanzado que permitiese adaptarlo a las necesidades o deseos de cada uno. Una de las restricciones que más me fastidia es sólo poder mostrar 3 Listas de Reproducción en la página pública del canal. Habrá que vivir con ello.

Esto son dos pantallazos del lector de News de mi iPhone, mostrando el índice y la pantalla del RSS con las nuevas subidas. Evidentemente yo no necisito leer el contenido, pero me sirve para saber lo que la máquina va subiendo por mi mientras yo estoy tomando un café o haciendo algo productivo (si es posible).

Hay otra cosa que al principio me pareció una tontería, pero que subvirtiendo su uso le voy a sacar partido para crear un Histórico de Programas de La Edad de Oro. Es el Videoblog, una tontuna creada para que la gente pueda tener una especie de blog automático creado a partir de una Lista de Reproducción.

He decidido crear una Lista de Reproducción llamada La Edad de Oro Programa a Programa que incluirá al menos dos vídeos por programa y editando el título y la información de esos vídeos y sustituyéndola por la relativa a cada programa podré hacer que el Videoblog acabe siendo un histórico de los contenidos ofrecidos por el programa. La razón de poner dos vídeos y no uno es que el espacio destinado al texto es muy reducido, así que meteré breves ráfagas de texto (a la twitter) usando un vídeo para la información en castellano y otro en inglés para los guiris. Ver Imagen.

Además lo voy a hacer como si fuese un auténtico blog realizado minutos después de acabar cada uno de los programas cuando fueron emitidos. Osea, que en lugar de ordernar de primer a último programa, lo voy a hacer al revés. El primero que aparecerá será el último (el de los Smiths) porque al ser la última entrada de blog deber aparecer sobre la anterior (Violent Femmes) y así sucesivamente.

Esta es la prueba de como quedaría el Videoblog. Se puede comprobar que el espacio para el texto es muy limitado, pero lo haremos valer. Títulos y contenidos personalizados en inglés y castellano.

No se como me lo voy a montar con los vídeos de los poquitos programas que me faltan, pero ya encontraré alguna solución por el camino, porque también esta es una taréa (además acumulada a la subida de los videos) que me llevará algún tiempo. Espero no desanimarme por el camino.

Lo único malo en todo esto es que cuando tenga todos los vídeos subidos ya me veo borrando todos los días tonelada y media de mensajes de correo enviados por YouTube diciendo: fulanito a votado el video tal, punkito te ha añadido a su lista de seguimientos, chatarrito ha dejado un comentario, Soraya Saenz de Santamaría ha dejado de hacer comentarios estúpidos sobre el gobierno y su contrapartida Leire Pajín lo propio sobre la oposición (bueno, ese mensaje no le borraría, pero tampoco creo en los milagros), etc… Todo sea por conseguir que todo este valioso material acabe siendo conocido por el mayor número de gente posible en todo el mundo.

Gator Host, Amazon, Facebook . . .

Sooo, I held to my word. I worked allllllllll day. Accomplish a lot. Got the web site fully moved over into Gator Host. Took most of the day because there was a glitch. But we are resolved! Up and running and moving at amazing speed according to a couple of people that checked for me. I also chatted with the Gator Host tech guy for almost 2 hours, through live chat, learning different things about their site and other odd details. And I have to say they have a feature I love: before you close out of your chat they ask if you want the chat emailed to you! Glory hallelujah . . . why YES! Then I looked into different things with Amazon and there is some pretty cool things over there that authors can do. And tried to decide whether John1 should have a Fan Page or Group on Facebook for Red Book and Cotton. Think we may go with a Fan Page. If there’s a way to have a discussion forum then decision made. If anyone knows please leave me a comment. But for now I’m leaving that till morning. I’ve had enough reading and exploring, reading and exploring, reading and exploring . . .

Let me tell you, the first thing, and I mean the very first thing I’m doing when I’m financially able is hiring a tech person.

Fun highlights for the day: Dan wanted to come over and be with me so he was here for some time. Just him, as I told the others he wants some alone time with me. Chatted briefly on Facebook with a friend I haven’t seen or talked with in probably 20 years and exciting news his wife is pregnant for the first time, also chatted with Cathy on FB too, she tried hard to help me with putting a link on the left side of my page for my blog. She can’t remember how she did hers and no matter how long we tried to figure it out we couldn’t. So if anyone knows how please leave a comment.

Night all, Love ya,
Theresa
-look for my name in the film credits

FÄRJAN PÅ KANAL5 ikväll. KL.20. FÄRJAN on television tonight. At 20.00!

Missa inte FÄRJAN på kanal5 ikväll. Kl.20.00. Det är säsong 3 och avsnitt 5 som gäller ikväll! I kvällens avsnitt är det “ett kärt återseende”, så har reklamtrailern som har snurrat på Kanal5, förra veckan förmedlat. Sedan har de visat hur jag går omkring och missionerar….På hemsidan dök en ny artikel och ett webbklipp upp under helgen. Allt detta inför kvällens program. Ni kan se det genom att trycka på länken nedan…Men gott folk, mina bloggvänner, facebook-vänner och vänner runtom, bänka er ikväll och titta på tv-succen Färjan! I 11 långa år har jag missionerat på Östersjöns olika båtar. Jag har nått tusentals människor, coachat, hjälpt, bett för, räddat liv från självmord och annat. Förmedlat tro, hopp och kärlek och nu kan ni se på tv, en liten del av det jag gör på Färjan, Viking Cinderella och de andra båtarna, Silja Line, Birka Cruises. Jag har en kallelse från Gud att missionera, evangelisera. Kallas för “Östersjöns mest ambitiösa evangelist”! “Cinderellas färgstarkaste karaktär”, “Trivselministern”, “Östersjöns hetaste Båtpastor” och så vidare…I kvällens avsnitt medverkar även min älskade syster Lea, hennes dotter katja och mannen Martin, samt den söta och fantastiska Isabell, 3år. Lea kan vara stolt över att ha ett barnbarn som är så charmigt….
Missa inte kvällens avsitt av FÄRJAN!
Mycket nöje!!!!

Isabell och jag i Viking terminalen.

Det är vi som medverkar ikväll! Här tillsammans med tv-teamet!

Tv-teamet och jag.

I lekrummet….

….Med söta Isabell i bollhavet…

Jag missionerar på däck…

Tv-teamet och jag på däck.

Isabell och Jag på däck….

 

http://kanal5.se/web/guest/nyheter?p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_id=K5AV_INSTANCE_7QqB&_K5AV_INSTANCE_7QqB_struts_action=%2Fk5journal%2Fav&_K5AV_INSTANCE_7QqB_articleId=2630953&_K5AV_INSTANCE_7QqB_groupId=1097&_K5AV_INSTANCE_7QqB_version=1.0

Google Ads

Try searching ‘Tara Sharp’ or ‘Janet Evanovich’ and check out the google ads in the right column. YAY for Allen and Unwin!!

Things are hotting up in the Tara Sharp Facebook department. Lots of people signed up overnight (thank you all!) and I’ve just had an interview with ABC online about it. I’ll be setting up a page here on the blog which will explain what I’m trying to achieve and why I’ve done it. That will be up over the weekend. So if you’re interested but not sure, have a read and be convinced

 Lastly, Belinda sent out the newsletter today. If you’re not subscribed and would like a copy of it, just email me at tarasharp at live dot com.

Wanneer komt er een gemeentelijke cultuurblog?

Eind deze maand is het alweer één jaar geleden dat we in de Provinciale Bibliotheek Limburg samen met enkele naaste collega’s en een hoop andere ‘vakgenoten’ mochten proeven van diverse multimediale bibtoepassingen (Web 2.0) waarvan o.a. Myspace, Facebook en bloggen deel uitmaakten. 23 dingen werd het geheel genoemd. Voor mij was dat toen een aangename kennismaking!

Diezelfde avond (26 oktober 2008) begon ik alvast voor mezelf met het bijhouden van een persoonlijke blog. Ik schrijf/schreef graag en ik dacht dat ik op zijn minst nu en dan eens een interessant verhaal met de mensheid zou kunnen delen. De ene dag lukt dat al wat beter dan de andere, zullen we maar zeggen. In al mijn enthousiasme (bepaalde collega’s hadden vooraf reeds een sterk voorgevoel) wilde ik me meteen engageren voor het opzetten van een Zonhovense bibliotheekblog, bij uitbreiding een gezamenlijke cultuurblog voor de gemeente Zonhoven. Dat leek me absoluut een haalbare kaart.

Uiteraard ben ik blij dat ik zelf een blog heb, want het grote voordeel is dat ik me hier een zekere ‘freedom of speech’ kan permitteren. Dat zou bij een gemeentelijke cultuurblog toch een ander verhaal zijn. Ik zou me daar kameleongewijs zeker uit de slag hebben getrokken, maar hier hoeft het in principe geen ‘goed-nieuws-show’ te worden. Desalniettemin blijf ik het een gemiste kans vinden, dat er nu (bijna 1 jaar later) geen bibliotheekblog/cultuurblog of hoe je het ook wil noemen is gevormd.

Er is sinds kort wél een personeelskrantje voor alle werknemers van de gemeente Zonhoven, dus op dat vlak heeft er dan toch al iets bewogen. Men is wel bezig (geweest) om alle culturele diensten (Jeugd, Sport, Toerisme, Bibliotheek en GC Tentakel) te verenigen onder de noemer Dienst Vrije Tijd. Maar niemand is op het (on)zalige idee gekomen om met al deze diensten samen een cultuurblog op poten te zetten. Zo kan je toch al die diensten in de kijker zetten tijdens diverse manifestaties. Wat de bibliotheek betreft: op deze blog vind je af en toe wel eens een publicitaire boodschap om onze dienst te promoten. En op Facebook probeer ik onze bibliotheekpagina ook ‘up to date’ te houden. Ik deed dus al een beetje moeite. Mijn vraag is dan ook: wanneer komt er een cultuurblog voor de gemeente Zonhoven? Wie het weet mag mij altijd een seintje geven …

Donnerilla valeprofiili Facebookissa

Kirjailija-elokuvaohjaaja Jörn Donneria ärsyttää. Joku on luonut hänen nimellään valeprofiilin internetin suosittuun Facebook-verkkoyhteisöön ,kerrotaanuutisissa.
- En minä tiedä, kuka sen on tehnyt. En minä ole sinne mitään luonut, Donner ihmettelee työhuoneellaan.  Lue uutisista lisää.

On tärkeää muistaa, että toisena henkilönä esiintyminen on laitonta.

I Dumped FaceBook

Yes, you read the title right, two days ago I dumped my facebook account.  I had never really been happy with it and finally felt it was becoming a kind of addiction.  I would spend hours popping on/off just to see if something new had been posted.  And then there is that little side game, Farmville, now that WAS becoming an addiction.  And all those people who are only on facebook so they can play Mafia Wars and brag about how many people they have put on ice.  Little boys never to seem to outgrow their toys do they?

The first thing that annoyed me about Facebook is that you see all these posts that have nothing to do with you.  Your friend posts something and then there are 9 million posts from their friends underneath that.  Giving a thumbs up, thumbs down, commenting, posting their own thoughts etc.  Then I started to notice that sometimes I would only get part of the posts.  My daughter would ask if I saw the post from a mutual friend and I didn’t, so how does that happen?  Stuff I would like to get I wasn’t and useless stuff I didn’t need, I was getting.  Then there was the fact that no really cared about my status, not even my kids, and when I would comment on someone else’s status they wouldn’t respond, so I thought why am doing this? Why am I putting myself out there for the whole world to see when no one really cares? Trust me I thought I was a pretty likeable person but my self esteem took a big hit with Facebook.

Then there were all the adds, quizzes and the tags, it was never ending, you could spend your whole day just doing the sidebar stuff. So after I decided I didn’t want to be a land baron in Farmville and would never go any where with it just keeping my one small acre and the same 8 animals, 22 trees, 30 plots of fruits/veggies, 2 butter churns, 2 crates, 2 stools, 2 wood piles (do you see a Noah like pattern here) 1 shed, mail box, picnic table, rest area, well, bicycle and oh yes Hot Air Balloon, I said chuck it.  This is stupid.

So now if I want to play a game I bring up Majong on the computer and play till my hearts content. But if I don’t play one day I don’t have the guilt that my crops withered and died hanging over my head.  And even though I am not getting a lot of hits on my blog, I am getting some.  There is something to said for knowing someone out there is reading what I write, even if I don’t know who they are.  Maybe Facebook should adopt the “Stats Graph”, hey I am sure they could put on the side with the rest that stuff.

Have a good night.

B