Tag Archives: facebook

A treadmill from Facebook

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It was television some time ago and now it’s the Internet. It’s making us sit for long durations and is causing harm that we might not even realize immediately. For some, it’s both; TV and Internet.

Sounds like a fair argument, right? You’ve heard this before, multiple times. And you agree too!

If you spend 50% of the time you currently spend on the computer on a treadmill, imagine the benefits! But again, Facebook is fun; email is essential and Internet is useful. We should find a way to access these without getting obese.

I remember a viral status share on Facebook some time ago that made me go ‘wow!’

Here is the summary: “Internet should be integrated with treadmill. It should stay connected only as long as you keep walking. Even better- the download speed should be directly proportional to the jogging speed!”

Now, how soon do you want that latest flick? ;)

I seriously like the idea. You should be rewarded for all the time you spend on Facebook. You should be getting slimmer and fit as you browse through your friends’ pictures. You should be burning out the calories from that birthday cake you had in office, as you watch a recent Bollywood item number on YouTube. If you want to download a movie for leisure Saturday night, you should workout for an hour or so to even get it. Or even longer if you want it in HD! :D

I like the idea so much that I would like to extend the dream! Seriously! Wouldn’t it be a breakthrough?!

While we run on the treadmill, it should actually generate power. May be to run a laptop. Or at least enough power to charge a mobile phone. As you anyway work hard, why not channel it into something useful? Considering the current design where you use electricity (loss) to get fit (profit), why not generate electricity (profit) while you get fit (profit) and browse through the web (profit and fun!)? Isn’t this what is called a win-win-fun situation?

Imagine the same with other machines. When you want to check your email, you head straight to the workout bicycle (or cross-trainer) and start pedaling. 60 secs and you generate enough power to light up a screen. Pedal for another 60 secs to connect to Internet. You pedal for as long as you want to spend in the Inbox. Would you still open email from unknown sources? And am sure you’ll warn your friends about sending those large attachments then! :P

We now have program modes on these machines that say Cardio, Fat burn, etc. You would then have modes that might say ‘email’, ‘download’, ‘music’, ‘Facebook’, etc. Oh, and ‘Chat’ too! :)

I know it’s not possible, at least in the immediate future, but I’m really excited to even think about it!

If somebody has a design to make this work, can you make one for me, please? :)

I hear Facebook is planning to launch a phone. We already have plenty of smart phones in the market. It would be wonderful if they can make this treadmill instead. Many of the Internet users are always on Facebook anyway! :)

How to craft your Internet

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If you spend more than an hour online everyday, it’s your Internet! You are an active Internet user!! And, that is a very powerful tool!!!

As it is said- “With great power comes great responsibility!” it’s also your responsibility to ‘maintain’ it.  :)

More than anything, it’s easier than you would think!

I see Internet usage broadly in two ways:

  • Give
  • Take

While most of the Internet users just ‘take’, it’s only fair enough we ‘give’ once in a while.

Consumption:

This is what most of us do everyday; ‘take’ content from the Internet.

  • We login to Gmail, process a few email and sign out.
  • We open a news website and read a few articles.
  • We open YouTube and watch a video or two.
  • We open Facebook and scroll through the feed for an hour.
  • We open Flickr or Picasa and check out a few pictures in an album.
  • We search in Google when we are looking for something and skim through the sites for information.
  • …

All these are the ‘consumption’ activities. Users that do just this can also be called as passive users of the Internet (leech might be inappropriate, heh?).

It’s as good as watching a regular TV.

To keep the Internet active, fresh and lively, it’s important we contribute as well. Make it interactive!

Contribution:

It’s possible we contribute at the same time we consume the content from the biggest ever pool of information.

  • Upload pictures of an event/ travel/ pets/ occasions etc., to Photo sharing sites or personal galleries.
  • Upload videos to  YouTube or any other online location and share.
  • Add comments to pictures and videos we watch.
  • Participate in discussions where possible.
  • Interact.
  • Add comments to facebook updates, pictures, videos.
  • Share articles, pictures, videos etc., on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.
  • Write blogs, add comments, or share the ones of value.
  • …

Unless we add more content and just keep consuming the existing one, the Internet experience eventually becomes stale; a long way to go but still possible.

Craft:

Along side consuming and contributing to the biggest library ever, we can even ‘fine tune’ the Internet to serve better on what you want/ feel/ need/ like/ prefer etc. Most websites/ tools that we use today use intelligent algorithms. So, our feedback is actually put to use and the content is refined.

I personally think networks like Facebook are a huge hit and addiction because they allow us to consume, contribute and fine tune- all at the same time!

  • When you receive a spam email, mark it as spam instead of just deleting it and moving on. Spam filters learn by your action and do a better job in the future.
  • When you see content on the web that you like, “Like” it if there is an option.
  • When you think some content might be useful to somebody else, do not hesitate to “share” it.
  • Sharing content can be through email, or social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.
  • Find a balance between creating original content and sharing. When we share too much stuff that is useful to nobody (like a picture with just quotes “Hit Like if you think love is beautiful” or “Hit Like if you think cats are cute”) will make Internet think we are all idiots.
  • We are not idiots; tell Internet that!
  • Share personal experiences, reviews, preferences; as you benefit from other’s content, let others find some content to weigh their options.

Like everything else, there’s a line between doing it and over-doing it. So, of course know how much is too much and consider your privacy preferences before you post your bank statement or bad appraisal letter snapshot on facebook. :P

If you already ‘contribute’ enough- adda boy! You and I are making Internet a good place! :)

If you don’t, and want to, you can start by expressing your thoughts on this very post and/ or by sharing this post with others! :P

Close call with phishing on facebook

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It was 11:30 pm and having just completed my mango picture and dinner last night, I was relaxing on the couch, watching ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ on my desktop. Few minutes into the sitcom, my iPhone beeped and showed an alert about some comment on one of my facebook Notes.

Laptop wasn’t very far – so while still following Ray’s comedy on big screen, opened facebook on laptop to review the comment. I then moved on to email in another tab and was browsing through without any particular intent.

Then I saw one of my old colleagues initiate a chat conversation on facebook. It’s been a long time I spoke with her and was a little surprised to receive a message at that hour. She started with regular pleasantries like ‘how u doing?’ and ‘what u upto?’ stuff. Everything was fine with me, and I told her so.

When I asked her the same questions back, response wasn’t as expected. She said things were not good at her end. I thought it’s the regular “missing-India” kinda complaints I receive from many people I know who live outside India.

This situation was different.

She told me they had a worst vacation ever. I assumed something did not go as planned and so she was still feeling bad about it. May be it was a couple of weeks ago or so, I thought.

As our conversation progressed further, she explained that she got stranded in Scotland at the moment. Based on the fine language she was using and calm composure she maintained, it did not appear right. But if she is on facebook, catching up with a long lost colleague, she’s possibly held up at an airport, bored, with an Internet kiosk or something. Why not?

I inquired if it was a flight delay. She said they were mugged at gun point and were stolen of cash, credit cards and phones. A story like this, fiction or real is in general associated with phishing. So, I paused the show I was watching, and started thinking about the live situation. I sat upright and took a moment to scroll up and read the complete conversation again, just to make sure I got it right.

Few questions ran through my mind, some sensible and some cautious.

Is this a real person talking to me? I mean, I know her as a colleague so I know she is a real person. But, is she the one who is actually chatting with me at the moment? Is she in a situation where she could use some help? If yes, I ought to help in any way I could. May be I can buy her flight tickets so she could reach home! But, wait. What if her account is hacked and if this is a phishing attempt?

There is one more clue left to judge if this is an authentic trouble situation or phishing – asking for sensitive information like bank or credit card details. That will help me decide to some extent. Asking for help is understood; asking for credit card number and related details is suspicious!

This friend of mine is a Telugu girl, currently staying in US with her husband. Just a habit I guess, chatting was in English all the while. I continued the chat after the mugging story, but in Telugu. If she is who I think she is, I know she speaks good Telugu and should not be any problem in discussing the situation further. I got prepared to help her (of course) but only after at least one confirmation of her authenticity. However, what if she is hesitating to ask for help because we haven’t spoken in years? I myself asked her if she needs any help, in Telugu. As soon as I sent a few sentences in Telugu, she went offline.

I was a little worried and confused at the same time. What if she was my colleague, really in trouble and lost connection due to some technical problem. I was waiting for her to come online again so that I can try to get her out of there. My idea probably was to book flight tickets online, Scotland to US, using my credit card and let them print/ access it there.

I was reminding myself to NOT disclose the card details. Getting flight tickets for someone who lost everything in a foreign land is a good help. As the card is physically with me, even if I share the card number and other details, they have to book online too. So, why not I book online from here and let them access the tickets from there?

If it’s a phishing attempt, they wouldn’t benefit much from a ‘Scotland to US’ airplane ticket, do they? They would need my card details so that they can buy something else. Yes, that was my move. If this is a genuine situation, once she comes online, I would confirm the necessary details and book her tickets online.

But there was a second thread that started in my head when she went offline. May be that’s someone who hacked her account and was phishing! He/ she logged off because they couldn’t continue the conversation in a foreign language!

Anyway, she was offline. I did not know which way to go – shall I wait for her to come online and help her get home? Or, go to bed considering that as a close call to phishing on facebook? I resumed Ray’s comedy and was glancing at facebook page once in a while to see if she shows online. Another 10 mins or so for the episode to come to an end. If I don’t see her online by then, I would go to sleep. Fixed.

10 mins passed and Ray’s sitcom show was over. Have to hit bed. But the first thread didn’t allow me to sleep. I wrote a big note on her wall before I logged off. It was a request to all her friends to help her if they see her online on facebook or get in touch by any other means elsewhere. I also sent her a message with my mobile number if she needs to wake me up.

After a little tossing and turning in bed, sat up again and logged into all messengers on iPhone. Unless something’s final on this drama, how can I go to normal sleep?

Luckily, she was online on Yahoo!

I sent her a “hi” and “u ther?” real quick.

She responded ok but was asking my whereabouts. May be she forgot my Yahoo ID. I login to yahoo only once every season.

Reminded about our encounter a moment ago on facebook and asked if she really needs help.

She was stunned too. A little more conversation helped us realize that her facebook was hacked. And the worst, part – she was not aware of it!

I was online until she reset her password for facebook, showed her the initial phishing chat conversation, deleted the help request on her wall and logged off.

All has ended well. It was a close call but no information was disclosed to the phisherman. Moreover, there isn’t an old friend stranded in Scotland, mugged at gunpoint, looking for help. What a relief!

Anyway, that was my personal story. But, here are a few more threats with facebook in general, FYI.

I am not sure but I think this is the code used by hackers to chat as the account holder. I like the comment number 0 on that page:

“This one should be so simple to prevent – it relies on a user actually copy and pasting in a command they don’t understand.

The downside is – “enough people are stupid enough” so it spreads.”

Take care fellas!

Facebook Decluttered

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facebookThere are very few occasions when accidents yield good results. Most of them are called inventions and I call mine a discovery. This feature was probably available all along, but I just discovered it. Just = a week or so ago; it = the page am going to show off now.

Without a doubt, facebook is the most happening social networking platform online and offline. While we have dedicated sites for professional networking, dating, sharing and collaborating, I guess facebook is the one that has no boundaries. Well, I too use it for casual networking and catching up most of the times but dozens of businesses are getting on this platform every day, not to mention the scrutiny of profiles from potential recruiters.

Anyway, this post is not to appraise facebook, but to overcome the problem that stops me get there. I hesitate to login to the site frequently because of the clutter all around. Yes, part of the problem is those stupid quizzes and cookies, Mafia war and Farmville updates, and am sure the list does not end there.

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Here I have a new page introduced on my blog – facebook. Once you login, there are two things you can do: one, have a discussion about my blog (am flattered already!); two, the one you might find it very useful – The ‘decluttered’ facebook! Just check out the page once and see how neat the live feed is! This option gives you only the ‘real’ updates from your friends, filtering out the other junk. Too good to catch up quickly! Bookmark the page and have fun!

And yeah, why is it an accident? I wanted to form a community and therefore integrated this blog with facebook quite some time ago. In single sentence, you can login to this blog with your facebook credentials, have an identity, form a community and manage your profile as a registered user. Read the complete post here. But then, I had some problems and I had to pull it off. I normally use Firefox for development and damn javascript errors made it difficult for Internet Explorer users to view the blog. In the course of fixing those errors, (am glad I could do it!) I discovered this option – the decluttered facebook. So, I proudly present to you this page.

What all can you do from this page?

  • update your status
  • read your friends’ live feed
  • ‘like’ a status message
  • comment on it and
  • logout facebook right from this site!

That’s the 80% of my facebook activity. The other 20% I can probably catch up on a weekend on the regular facebook. Good deal!

While you can catch up directly with that page, this is what I would recommend. (Because with this one step, every time you are logged in to facebook, cookie identifies your login and takes you to your live feed page on this blog automatically!)

  1. Connect with facebook (the community space on the right hand side bar, just below the ads)
    Fullscreen capture 1162009 105426 AM
  2. Have fun!

Last but not the least, let me know what you think in comments!

Is the facebook festival over for you?

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When did you get on facebook? How much time do you spend every day updating your status or reading others’? I bumped into questions like this when reading an article about the recent social networking analysis. It is said that though very slow as of now, the decline curve has started; and one of the primary reason is big giants getting in for business, but it does not end there.

For me, it’s been about a year since a buddy introduced me to facebook. I entered to check out few pictures and the journey began.

Facebook apparently has more than 250 million active users now. Unlike other social networking sites, facebook is said not to boast their numbers with inactive/ dead accounts. All these members login at least once every month. Though the percentage of new users in the Americas has slowed down, with introduction of natural languages, it looks like the growth from rest of the world is tremendous. And, when compared to these numbers, quitters are very less, but experts say the trend has started. It’s not unheard that there are many users dumping Flickr and Picasa too for sharing pictures on facebook. This could mean, like many other social networking sites, facebook could be history too. However, what is concerning is the reasons these quitters do so.

While many say that it is eating up a lot of their time, there are others who have much worse effects. They feel they are losing touch with their real friends; updates and status messages are followed and it is felt that they are very close together, while it has been more than six months they either met or said hello over the phone. It gets worse- a common problem has been identified where facebook users felt they are stalking their own friends! You browse their profiles and skim through the wall without even posting a comment or having any interaction. For specific stories read through the Facebook Exodus and The Facebook backslash. Yeah, Bill Gates quit facebook too, but for totally different reason.

For those who try to convince that facebook has a different purpose like expanding their network of friends by meeting new ones online, or discovering long lost old friends, quitters are vexed up to buy this. They say that everyone has been found through some site or the other and that they are losing the existing ones in real life, considering they are available at a click on facebook when needed. Help to quit facebook is available too! Check this and this.

There are a number of social networking sites (MySpace, LiveJournal, Classmates etc.) that ruled the Internet during the recent past and are now history. I’ve been a part of the few and frankly, didn’t even hear about many. Among the ones that I am active right now, facebook and twitter are the ones worth mentioning, and based on the activity I can’t dare to mention LinkedIn among the above. The complete Social Me is available on the top right hand bar on this blog, check out! Am wondering if this could be a fad like Orkut, for which the festival was over about a year ago for me. I just login to reply if anyone scraps and get out of there within couple of minutes.

But there is something else. Facebook has come into the limelight as the profiles are checked out by many prospective employers and government agencies and God knows who all. It is considered to have understood a slice of life by reading through the activity for a few weeks. Some users are getting uncomfortable with the intrusion, leaving facebook. But there is advise on how to make this work for you and not against too!

Keeping aside the analysis and the current trend, how are you affected by facebook, or any other social networking site right now?

  • How much time do you spend every week [on facebook]?
  • Are you happy or having ‘fun’?
  • Would you save some time for something else or be better off with this face?
  • Do you have any strong reasons to hold on to, or quit facebook?

You can share your thoughts in the comments. For myself, I spend less than 15 minutes on facebook, on those  days I login. I am making sure not to miss out on the major fun part, but making sure that the festival is not over too. Is the facebook festival over for you?

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Firefox experience

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firefox-logo

Firefox has released the latest version 3.5. Check what’s new in this release and download the latest version here. Firefox 3.5 offers many changes over the previous version, supporting new web technologies, improving performance and ease of use. Some of the notable features (including playing videos without additional plugins!) are listed on the release notes page linked above.

I installed the new release and am loving it so far. I guess this is one of the best browsers giving us the control and ease of use for better browsing experience. In fact, after moving to the wordpress platform, I used just Firefox to develop my blog. Though I did verify a few times in IE and Chrome for compatibility issues, this is my main work tool for development and testing. So, you’ll no doubt enjoy the blog experience better if you are on Firefox.

The beauty of this application comes in with add-ons. While there are thousands of options to customize your browsing experience, here are a few of my favorites. I already use a few and yet to try the others, but sharing information anyway just in case you are interested. If you use this browser or any add-ons, please add in a comment about your experience!

Add-ons:

ColorZilla 2.0.2: While this allows you to zoom the web page and also measure the distance between two points (for web development), I use this for color picker. In fact, this was my favorite when tweaking colors on my blog CSS! Works awesome!

Google Reader Watcher 0.0.14.3: I use the Google Reader, so I think I will try out this add-on soon. This checks your Google Reader for unread feeds and if you have, the plugin will display them on your browser’s status bar.

ShareThis 3.1.0: ShareThis makes sharing any online content quick and easy. The ShareThis plugin allows you to share text, pictures and video to any contact via email, IM, text message, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Twitter and many more services.

Meebo 1.1: Who hasn’t given meebo a try at some time or the other? Now, this is meebo inside firefox as sidebar! Instant messaging across all major IM networks.

Media Converter 1.0.3: Download and convert online videos directly from your browser without the need for special software. This is a video downloader and video converter in one simple extension.

Facebook experience:

Boost for Facebook 9.4.0: If you are a facebook freak, this will make your experience more colorful and live! Some of the notable features: auto-refresh Home, rollover image for each view in full size, ability to load all the album photos on a page, quick access icon in the status bar, rollover all profile pic thumbnails, auto-login and password is stored.

Facebook Toolbar 1.4: Am not a great fan of any browser toolbar but here is one for facebook if you are interested. Notable features: Search for friends and go to their profile page directly from toolbar, notification when friends update status messages and also new requests, pokes etc., sidebar option to organize facebook friends and an option to share any page you’re browsing directly with your friends or you can also post it to your wall.

Twitter experience:

This one has a good collection but here are my preferences.

TwitterBar 2.4: Post to Twitter from your address bar.

TwitterFox 1.8.2: Notifies you of your friends’ status on Twitter. You can also of course tweet directly from here.

TwitKit 1.2.2: TwitKit is a Twitter sidebar for Firefox. It is like a twitter client, but inside the firefox application! TwitKit has a 6-section interface, using tabs to separate content. You can view the Twitter public timeline, your user timeline, a list of your friends and their latest tweets, a list of your followers and their latest tweets, @replies made to you, and stats about your account.

Flickr experience:

Flickr Gallery Plus! 0.87: Improvised presentation for Flickr fans who browse those awesome Sets all day. Keyboard navigation with arrow keys and slideshow options included.

Flickr Buddy 0.2.5: This is your Personal Assistant to get you updates from Flickr. You configure with friends’ RSS feed and it shows you the number of new pictures uploaded every few minutes (duration can be configured) and you can check those pictures in a new browser tab instantly.

These are the ones I have on my mind today. If you get a chance to try these out, please add in a comment to let me know how it works for you!

Integration with facebook

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I should admit am loving my site so far. It’s fun to work on this to make it more user-friendly, more robust and more appealing. Thank you everyone who has visited my site so far and especially the handful quality regular visitors who made this a success.  Keep visiting and am sure we’ll have a good time here. Let’s celebrate life in every possible way!

Let’s take this to next level now. I have integrated this site with facebook. Yay! Let me explain as best as I can how this changes your experience. Read the FAQs below:

Objective:

I want all the visitors of this site to know each other a little bit. We can form a community, sort of. You can choose how much information you want to disclose. Instead of all visitors browsing and having fun individually, we can now have the same fun together. Everyone will be able to see the recent visitors and know them (you) as a person, not merely as ‘just another visitor’. May be you have something in common. Isn’t that exciting? Or, you can make new friends here!

What’s in it for me?

Well, to start with, you ‘login’ to this site. You are a ‘user’ here, not a guest. This implies, you don’t need to enter your name, email address and website information every time you add a comment. You have a profile. You have your own profile page as well. You can edit your profile to share more, or less information as you desire. Other visitors will know it’s you, the same person doing certain activity on the portal. You have an identity!

What’s with the facebook integration?

I did 90% of the work for you in creating your profile on this site with this integration. All you have to do is say yes. Your basic profile information from facebook will be carried forward to this site. This includes your profile picture as well. If you change your profile picture on facebook, this profile will be updated too. So, this helps us maintain the same identity without creating a new profile just for this site. Yet, giving you the functionality of a ‘registered user’ here. Also, if you are logged into facebook, the cookies are tracked and you are automatically logged in here! You logout here, and it logs you out on facebook too. We are working very closely you see! :P

What do I need to do?

  • Check the newly added widget ‘Community’ in the side bar.
  • Click the button “Connect with facebook”.
  • Provide your facebook credentials to login and link your identity.

Congratulations! You are now a registered user of this portal! It should show your profile picture and link to your profile.
Optional: you can edit your profile to remove the link to facebook public profile page and add your own website or blog there. Make any other changes you desire and save your profile.

Anything else?

Of course. You can invite your friends to this site. Just use the option in the ‘Community’ widget. Also, if you like any post/ article, click the facebook icon at the end of the post (along with those other breadcrumbs) to post the story to your wall or share it with friends on facebook. There is an option to share your comments too on your facebook wall. However, I had some coding problems and therefore it’s disabled for now. May be sometime soon once I figure out what’s wrong with it.

To wind up the class, welcome to the community in advance. Thanks a heap for your co-operation so far. I hope I can count on you all for more interesting stuff like this. Be part of the community, invite your friends, check out other visitors, interact with them, make friends, have fun, have more fun and have more & more fun!

As always, don’t forget to let me know by adding comments, what you think of this new step into Web 2.0!

Update:

The facebook integration has been removed when the blog bought a new simpler ‘dress’ in March 2010.