Category: Work/Technical

  • FSS – Facebook Status Syndrome

    So i was reading some stuff that was sent to me via twitter, and i was browsing the BBspot website when i saw an article labelled “Doctors Notice Increase in Facebook Status Syndrome”

    They claim that people are starting to become obsessed with changing their status to refelct their every move. And are starting to “verbalize every move they make”

    “It’s a continuation from the online world into reality, and it can be debilitating as well as quite annoying.”
    Many times FSS goes unnoticed, because most victims have no social interaction outside Facebook or other online social networks.  It’s only when these people journey out in public, when it becomes noticeable”

    Its kinda like that little britain sketch with George and Sandra – “Putting a bit of beef on the old fork, putting the fork to my little-britian-usa__595977amouth, short pause while i chew.”

    It makes me wonder though, if people are getting this bug because of facebook, then what the hell is going to happen to us twitter fans? As the whole point of twitter is to document your every move in 140 characters or less.

    We’ll soon all be walking around speaking everything we do, “just opening the door, just walking through the door, just shutting the door” or even worse we’ll be strapped up with sensors and shit and literally our every move will be recorded automatically on a website. I can actually see that happening with twitter soon to be honest as i have already seen a bakers in london that has an automatic twitter updater when something comes out the oven and a guy who had his chair sense when he farted and updated his twitter status accordingly.

    Who knows where it will all end up!

  • Why i like twitter

    Ive had accounts on most of the top social networking sites just because they were there i suppose. I never really got on with the myspace interface, and the flashing backgrounds and 4 different songs starting at one time started to piss me off a bit. Facebook is a excellent way of finding people you have lost touch with, and sharing what you and your friends do at the weekend.  But i just see facebook as a way of sharing things we are doing with thousands of people. A marketing tool so to speak. Plus i get so annoyed having to block applications, deny gifts, and cancel all the other crap everyone sends me!

    Then along came twitter.

    Initially i had no idea what the hell use it could ever be. It was so simple, and i really saw no benefit to anyone. Then i started following a few people. I added people that made software i had bought, and i started receiving up-to-date info about the next release of that software. I added Jimmy Carr and found a funny one liner popping up every now and then. I added some people who do similar work to me, and the things they were talking about were relevant to what i do every day.

    I suddenly found myself hooked to this on the pulse news being sent to a tab in my browser.

    Then i didn’t have access to my pc for a day, and when i got back to work i had totally forgotten all about it. Once i remembered i went back on and started to notice it was quite inconvenient having to check that tab every time i wanted to see if anything had been said.

    So i looked for an app to help me keep updated. I noticed a friend of mines posts were from something called twitterfox, DING, it hit me. What an idiot. I have everything else plugged into my browser, and i hadn’t even thought to look for a firefox extension! Thanks stu!

    Now i get instantly notified of any tweets and im finding it more and more useful each day.

    I also like how they have left it VERY simple, and they have left everything else you might be able to use twitter for up to everyone else.

    Ive noticed LOADS of sites that use twitter in different ways. Finding hot talked about topics, integrating pictures even finding specific people to follow in an attempt at getting them to return the favor for use in advertising etc.

    I heard that google are looking to buy twitter, too. T hat should be interesting.

    Peace out, im now going to bed – and then going on holiday.

    Adios!

  • Ever lost a window off your screen in xp?

    When im in the office i use an extra monitor as well as my laptop screen, and i have my different windows on different monitors doing their bitniss.

    If – for example – i have my firefox browser open on my extra monitor, and i have clicked a browse button to add a picture to a blog post or something, my laptop will remember which monitor the dialog window was open on when i clicked OK, and ALWAYS open it on that monitor unless you move it, and click OK on another window.

    I got home tonight and i wanted to test our youtube style modified car video site (maxxd.tv) as i have recently updated the software. I clicked browse to select a test vid, and the window opened on the monitor that wasnt there!

    I do have it disabled in my display settings, it just seems to not understand what’s going off. Ive had the problem before and i just left that particular job until i was next using that screen.

    However tonight i wanted to resolve the issue, instead of sweeping it under the carpet.

    So i did some googling and found mostly a bunch of shite from people who obviously don’t know what the hell they are talking about, and amongst the shite was something that looked a bit more techie orientated, so i clicked and BINGO.

    Heres the solution!

    1. Hold down Alt + Spacebar
    2. Press the M key
    3. Use the arrow keys to relocate the window
    4. Press the Enter key when you have the Window in the desired location.

    Its simply the keyboard alternative to right clicking on the title bar of the window and selecting move. It never dawned on me to do that, as i wasn’t aware i could control the movement of the windows with the keyboard.

    I thought i would share it, as like i said most of the stuff i found on google was crap, so at least there will be two decent results when people are searching.

    Cheers Kevin!