Frog In North Georgia » Yoono

Reciprocity, Social Networking, and Ads

Christine Eclavea Mercer — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 23:58:14 +0000

Shockingly, I now have twice as many followers on Twitter than I am following. And having discovered that not thoroughly examing a persons Twitter feed before following is a big invitation for spam, I’m now behind in the netiquette of following the non-spammers.

Sounds labor intensive and kind of nonsensical, no?

[twitter]

I found a little app that I like, Yoono, that runs in the sidebar and creates a feed that combines Twitter and Facebook. Most importantly, it lets me edit the feed to some degree. So I don’t need to follow every friends activity in Farmville and Mafia Wars. If I have time to kill, I can actually go to Facebook and play. But in the course of a normal day, when I have stuff to accomplish, I can read the highlights. This was especially handy when SIL was posting baby on the way updates.

It’s a much better method, than what I was doing previously, which was not logging in to Facebook more than once a week. Because it can truly be a time sink.

I’m thinking now about the rules of engagement for comments. Because I have unfriended a person, because person has digressed to being unable to talk about anything unrelated to getting laid. Ditto for comment to my blog. I could go on. But I’ll spare you.

[unfriend]

So here’s the question: is social networking skewing the filter of polite behaviour? Too much freedom to get our thoughts out in the world? Too easy to pull the trigger and hit enter?

In my defense… I use my standard test for peoples actions and whether I need to be party to them and look for a pattern. An occasional foot in the mouth in my estimation is typical. Toxic with regularity is to be avoided.

Then there is the business end of things. I’m good with reading a few times a day about somebody’s hobby or profession, unless it is the only topic. Or it gets all hourly spammy. But the pay per post type links on twitter. Ugh. Isn’t this why people pay for cable, and tivo, and subscribe to xm radio? Me anyway.

Hulu has this new feature where you have to watch an ad to keep it free, but get to choose which ad. I like this. The trojan condom commercial where Joe Average hooks up with a hot girl because she is a vampire is hilarious. And there is a bacardi ad that I like because of the music. On the other hand, there’s a VW ad and a banking ad that I hope I never have to see again. Fortunately, I haven’t had to. I can stick to the R rated condom and liquor commercials that entertain me.

We’re about to turn the cable back on. We turned it off because it’s a time sink and crazy expensive considering we can watch tv free. Except that there is a racquet for tv and sports. DH cannot watch his sports on the pc. They are blocked or otherwise unavailable. So after months of torture, I suggested we turn it back on. Some people drink in the evening and unwind. DH watches sports. I like him better with his sports. He’s happier.

I have not missed tv much, because I watch Hulu and Netflix and whatever else crops up. I miss DH having tv, golf in particular. I will be pleased to see Law and Order SVU again. And I will like lifting weights while I watch tv. I don’t do that when I’m on the computer, because I’m attached to a headset and the screen is small.

Damn, I’m wordy tonight. And now we return to our regularly scheduled programming.

10 Inch Screen

Christine Eclavea Mercer — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:31:53 +0000

The Asus Eee HE 10 inch screen has required some adjustment on my part. I actually thought it would not, as I have used laptops many times. But a netbook is different, significantly smaller. And going from a 17 inch screen to a 10 inch screen, quite a change.

I almost disabled Yoono, because trying to work on a small sidebar, on a small screen was becoming an aggravation. But then realized that I have four toolbars taking up real estate at the top of my screen. That’s no problem on a 17 inch monitor. But it’s twenty percent of my screen on this netbook. So, I turned off the navigation bar, and use the keyboard to navigate, though I sometimes miss it and turn it back on. I turned off the Stumble toolbar, which I turn on when I feel like surfing and Stumbling. And I set the Windows taskbar to autohide. Ahhh, much better. The F11 key has also become my new best friend.

And I’m just plain having to get used to things looking different. I can either see everything, smaller, or I can see one or two things at a time. These are my choices. Generally speaking, I only need to see one-two things at a time. And as long as I can tab back and forth freely, it’s all good.

Photo editing is challenging too. And I haven’t figured the same workarounds for that yet, as I have the general screen layout. But I’m sure I’ll think of something.

Asus Eee First Impressions

Christine Eclavea Mercer — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:42:33 +0000

The Asus Eee arrived today. Here’s how it went down.

The Order

Ordered from Amazon on Sunday. Shipped promptly by Adorama Camera.

Delivery

Arrived in three days. This is the only delivery ever stated to arrive within 3-5 business days, coming to this address, that has ever arrive in three days. Wahoo.

Weirdly, UPS man arrived at noonish, rather than evening, as I was pulling out of neighborhood. Since I saw him I raced back to my driveway to sign for my new pc.

Packaging all in order.

Equipment

Instructions are clear. Wow, tech writers have improved. But don’t believe me. I’m a gearhead. Ask somebody who will read the instructions, all of them. I read four pages. Just the ones I wanted.

Plugged my new little gadget in for three hours and ignored him. Yes, it should be her, like ships. But this one is going to be a male.

Booted up like a charm. (Maybe I’ll call him Henri.) Easy initial setup.

asus eee he workspace

Networking

Wi-fi kicked right in and found every network in the neighborhood: except ours. I restrained myself from trying to login to the neighbors network by typing in the names of all their kids and instead sent DH a text asking him where he hid it. Of course he hid it.

Attempted to login to DHs network, while he pretended to ignore me, but asking, “Did you find it? Do you have it now? Now, are you on?”

Promptly logged into network, then failed to get dns to fire up. Disconnect, reconnected, tried various reconfigurations, then got smart and moved closer to the router. Voila!

Downloaded as much stuff as came to my head instantly: Firefox, Scribefire, Yoono, Google Toolbar, BBCode and Mapthis.

Screen Keyboard Mouse

The screen isn’t bothering me one bit. I’m totally fine with it.

The keyboard is going to take some getting used to. I must revert to shorter nails, which I have always found a necessity for laptops. The control and home keys are very close together. And the function key is something I’m needing to use a lot. I find none of these things to be a deterrent.

I thought the mouse would freak me out. But it doesn’t. I am slow with the right clicking. But other than that find it intuitive.

Conclusion

None of the things I’m having to tweak are more bothersome than any other pc I’ve ever configured. This laptop is doing what I want. And it fits in my purse. This could be love.