Archive for the ‘ Social Networking ’ Category

My favorite useful 3rd party Mac tools

I like finding free little third party programs that add useful functions to the already great Mac OS.  I download lots of these, but there are only a few that I use on a very regular basis.  (Sorry PC users, these are predominantly Mac-only programs.  But I’m sure there are plenty of PC alternatives for all of these applications.)

iStat Menus: This application allows you to view information for 8 different processes in your computer right in your menu bar.  You can check out the status of your CPU, RAM memory, hard drive space, network connection, internal temperatures, fans and power and bluetooth connection.  It also gives you a great replacement for the default date/time display on the menu bar – when you click on the time, a small calendar pops out.

[update - 8.28.09] – It seems that the latest version of iStat Menus will not work with Mac OS 10.6.  Waiting for update…]

Skitch: I talked about this one in an earlier post.  It allows you to take a picture of anything that is on your computer screen.  It comes with some basic editing tools, or you can open any screen shots taken in any other image editor you wish.  It’s more useful than you might think.

There's more - keep reading... (813 words, 1 image, estimated 3:15 mins reading time)
2009
08/27
CATEGORY
For Students
Online Video
Productivity
Social Networking
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Parents make good Facebook friends!

Facebook has come a long way from its beginnings in 2003.  The Facebook babble being generated over dorm room broadband Internet connections back then was certainly not for parent’s eyes.  In fact, Facebook effectively barred most parental participation; you couldn’t join if you didn’t have a college email address.  Its not that it was necessarily filled with obscene or shocking content; it’s just that it was more strictly a social connection tool within a private club primarily for college undergrads.  But as Facebook grows up, it is realizing a larger potential.  Its doors are now open for anyone to join, and it has become an extremely useful and versitile tool (about which I discuss in a previous post.)

Facebook is like the high school pothead that floors everyone at his 10-year reunion by arriving with a Porche, a fantastic career, and a hot wife.  Despite its success, it nonetheless struggles to shake the slacker image that lingers in the eyes of those it grew up with.  Therefore the thought of parents being included in Facebook friends lists is often repellent to most users, particularly to the twenty-something crowd that met Facebook when it still knew how to party.

There's more - keep reading... (697 words, estimated 2:47 mins reading time)
2009
08/17
CATEGORY
Social Networking
TAGS
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I love Facebook and Kool-Aid

I’m sure you know the kind of people this post is directed to – the annoying, snobby, elitist people who refuse to join Facebook. And if you are in this group, most of your friends think you are annoying, snobby, and elitist. All you anti-Facebookers need to get off your high horses and discover why Facebook is a great tool.

The dumb stuff I hear from these web 2.0 poo-pooing people includes:

  1. I don’t have the time or patience for setting up ANOTHER online profile;
  2. I’m afraid I won’t have many friends to connect with;
  3. Facebook is a stupid waste of time;
  4. Anything of importance that I can do on Facebook I can do though email or the phone;
  5. Facebook is just a fad, like Friendster (and MySpace. Snap.);
  6. I don’t wanna bother putting up little status updates, nor would I care about all the mundane crap that my various Facebook “friends” do all day.
There's more - keep reading... (552 words, estimated 2:12 mins reading time)
2009
08/15
CATEGORY
Productivity
Professional Development
Social Networking
TAGS
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Streamy.com: A clown car for social networking feeds

Most of my (unproductive) Internet time is spent on Twitter, Facebook, and looking at my various RSS feeds.  Typically, I browse my various Twitter accounts using Tweetie (Mac only), my Facebook Newsfeed using the Adobe AIR Facebook Application, and my RSS feeds using NetNewsWire (Mac only).  These browser-free options are all great, but I am always looking for more efficient ways to view all three of these things at the same.

Yesterday, Mashable.com had a post about Streamy.com.  This is a site that aggregates your Twitter, Facebook, (as well as various other social networking sites) and RSS feeds all into one website.  It even accesses my Google Talk account to let me IM folks.  It has been around for a while, and when I tried it out in the past I found it was really buggy – it never did let me add my Facebook account to my profile.  But after playing around with it again last night for about 30 minutes I was able to load all my various accounts into it, and it works pretty darn well.

It can be slow in refreshing some information and I had to reload the page a few times to get me out of loading limbo, but it has come a long way.

There's more - keep reading... (217 words, estimated 52 secs reading time)
2009
08/13
CATEGORY
Social Networking
TAGS



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What’s My Point?

This blog is about my frantic sprint to a life where everything I do, write, read, watch, and (perhaps) say will be translated into 1’s and 0’s, stored on an unfathomable number of computers around the world, and be instantly accessible from my MacBook. All the stuff I discuss in here is really cool, (usually) really cheap, and make me more productive.