- @verso I’m telling ya, that loser Twitter’s no good for you. Keep your options open, come to the FriendFeed party. The conversation goes on! #
- @rgunjan Which marketing book? Hope it wasn’t one I recommended!
# - @rgunjan OK, phew. Feel free to tell me if my book recommendations ever suck, so I can reconsider recommending them!
# - No way! Brian, my longtime friend, podcast co-host, and fellow blogger (umpcgeek.com) has finally joined Twitter! @bljarv Welcome, Brian! #
- @marusin I was pushing @bljarv hard on both Twitter and FriendFeed last week, on and off the show. I’m sure he’ll join FF soon! #
- @shadowbottle Use summize.com, with the parameter “from:yourtwittername” to search your own tweets. #
- @donpdonp I haven’t used SocialThing very much, but IME, it seems like a less-featured FriendFeed. Anyone know what makes it special? #
- @jmartens The Strands alpha is pretty cool, but as of now, it lacks social gravity for me: not enough of my network is there yet. #
- Yay! Now Brian’s on FriendFeed, too. Go subscribe to him! http://friendfeed.com/bljarv #
- Got my SHO back from the shop today. Coolant leak fixed, O2 sensors and temp sending unit replaced, which should help my MPG a LOT. #
- I wonder how long it’s going to be until people stop roving through the new Intel JF1 offices, talking loudly, as if they were tour guides? #
- Mac OS X 10.5.4 is out. Anyone install it yet? I’m going to give it a try. Warn me if you had a bad experience! #
- Shozu for iPhone is coming (great app to upload photos to tons of photo services like Flickr)? Do want! http://tinyurl.com/5g2byp #
- Trying out Alert Thingy (integrated Twitter/FriendFeed client) again, now that I’m using FriendFeed more. Is it better than Twhirl? We’l … #
- Why did Twhirl just Favorite a whole screen full of Tweets? And continue to do so for incoming tweets? #
- Oh. The “star” in Twhirl doesn’t mean “Favorited”, like it does in the rest of the world. It means “unread”. Of course… :-/ #
- And since Twhirl does Twitter AND FriendFeed, why can’t I get them in a unified view, a la Alert Thingy? With Twitter de-duping, a la same? #
- @bljarv Twhirl and Alert Thingy are both cross platform, since they run on Adobe AIR. I’m trying both how, as a way to integrate FF better. #
- Now trying a Fluid “site specific browser” for FriendFeed, using the Google Gadget URL, instead of Twhirl or Alert Thingy. Not bad so far. #
- @jmoriarty I’m doing lots of experimenting to see where FriendFeed fits into my information lifestyle. Will share the results, for sure! #
- FriendFeed just launched an iPhone interface! http://friendfeed.com/iphone. Playing with it now, but so far, it is Teh Hot. #
- @mattg You’re right. You can use either http://friendfeed.com/i, or http://friendfeed.com/iphone/ (with the trailing slash). Nice catch! #
- You will also automatically get redirected to the iPhone interface if you go to friendfeed.com on an iPhone. Other URLs are for other brwsrs #
- At the Green Dragon, early, for the LoT board meeting. Anyone else here yet? #
- Great Legion of Tech strategy meeting tonight, talking about “what we want to be when we grow up”. My first time at the Green Dragon, too. #
- The sunset was really interesting tonight, with the haze. The sun hung fat and orange above the horizon. #
Monthly Archive for June, 2008
- So, how long before we have a really good FriendFeed app for the iPhone? I mean, I love Twitterrific and all, but FF has become essential. #
- Hey! I just noticed I passed my 2000th post on TinyScreenfuls.com a few days ago. Look, a milestone! #
- My blog, TinyScreenfuls.com, will turn 5 years old in a couple of months. Barely younger than my oldest daughter. That’s weird. #
- Let’s see… 2000 posts over about 5 years = average of more than 1 post per day. Lately my daily Twitter digest has been padding that, tho. #
- @sarahcofer I do my lifestream (joshbancroft.com) and my linkblog (linkblog.joshbancroft.com) using http://soup.io #
- Hey Portland - get ready. Doppler radar at wund.com shows a BIG thunderstorm coming. Flashes and rumbles out here already. Power flickered. #
- I love thunderstorms. Wish we had more of them in Oregon, for as much as it rains here. #
- Stormwatching is a different experience when I can watch live Doppler radar to see where the storm is, and get live updates from Twitter. #
- All from my iPhone, while sitting on the porch and watching the storm the old fashioned way. THIS is why I love technology! #
- @jmartens As I understand PersonalTelco, they don’t necessarily pay for all of the hotspots, but recruit volunteers to host/create them, too #
- @jmartens no, you can volunteer to be a node for PersonalTelco. They advocate that. They don’t just list any old hotspot. Growing a network. #
- @jmartens for example, the free wifi at Powell’s and Cedar Hills Crossing mall in Bvtn? That’s PersonalTelco. #
- @jmartens Have you read Doctorow’s “Someone Comes to Town…”? A volunteer-based free wifi network like the one in the book is their goal. #
- Psst! Hey, want to know a secret? Intel skipped over Windows ME, too! #
- Was all excited to go see Wall-E tonight, but @rachelbancroft said she doesn’t really want to. Totally jealous of everyone who goes.
# - OH: “No, our computer can’t possibly have a virus. We use Windows Vista. VISTA!” #
- Recorded an episode of Bit Stories with Brian earlier, listening/editing/writing show notes now. #
- @kellyrfeller Thanks! It was a fun interview. I love to talk about my Kindle! I’ll blog the whole text of it soon. I wrote lots more! #
- @Jerry_Makare Yay! Welcome to FriendFeed, Jerry! Have fun, and show me anything cool you find! #
- Hey, imagine that! I got this weeks episode of Bit Stories edited, annotated, uploaded, and out the door! Yay! http://tinyurl.com/5ldc45 #
Here’s this week’s show! Have a listen, and check out the download/subscribe links and detailed show notes below.
This week’s show is about 47 minutes long and weighs about 42MB (it’s a 128kbps MP3). You can download the file directly, listen using the streaming player above, or (BEST OPTION!!1!) subscribe to the Bit Stories podcast feed in your favorite podcast aggregator (like iTunes). If you subscribe to the feed, you’ll get each show delivered automatically as it becomes available - probably once a week or so, with the occasional bonus video or audio segment thrown in for fun. Plus, we’ll love you forever if you subscribe!
Here are some free-form notes and links for the stuff we talked about this week:
- Intel’s JF1 Workplace of the future. It isn’t soundproof.
Josh is not leaving Yahoo. - Intel’s Not Deploying Vista (NYTimes).
- It’s more complex and subtle than “Vista Sucks”. Really.
- Vista’s not really that bad - we’ve both used it. Stability, tablet features, etc. are much better than XP.
- Why is Josh not using Vista today? Because he switched to Mac. It’s not that he doesn’t like Vista, it’s that he doesn’t like Windows.
- Conspiracy Theory #1: Intel is creating a Linux distro for employees. All the big companies are doing it!
- Conspiracy Theory #2: Does Intel’s processor technology come from aliens? Did they tell us NOT to use Vista?
- Firefox 3 was released! It set the Guinness record for software downloads in a day - 8+ million. Their servers were smoking craters for a while. Speed, stability, new UI, and memory footprint are much improved?
- Is Firefox 3 threaded for multicore processors? We don’t know. Tell us!
- The use of the term “you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting…” Swinging a dead cat is not endorsed by Bit Stories. Besdies, Josh is allergic to cats, except Serious Cat.
- Snow Leopard news - GrandCentral, OpenCL, LLVM, and smaller app footprints.
- Is Snow Leopard still going to have Rosetta emulation for PowerPC binaries?
- Hard drives are only getting bigger and cheaper (can you even BUY a Mac with a drive smaller than 250GB?). So why reduce footprint? SSD (solid state disks).
- Pay more for Windows on a netbook, or keep the price the same and make the SSD bigger?
- SSDs are The Future, but they’re still WAY expensive (it’s a $999 option on the MacBook Air).
- How few moving parts there really are in a laptop (HD and fan)
- Where do you draw the line for legacy hardware support? Apple pushes the envelope because they control the whole stack. Microsoft has it a LOT harder, because they have to support such a wide variety of hardware.
- Are Mac users more forgiving when Apple drops legacy support (smacks us around) than when Microsoft does it?
- Josh cops to being an Apple fanboy
- It’s a miracle that Windows even works at all, given how many different hardware drivers (of varying quality) that it needs to support.
- Intel motherboards have finally dropped support for PS/2 ports. Josh is surprised in two directions - that they finally dropped them, and that they’re still around.
- Incompatibility doesn’t happen as much on Apple, because they control the whole stack. But control comes at the expense of competition.
- It’s amazing that Apple has let Psystar live for so long.
- Twitter and Friendfeed
- Twitter has problems.
- The term “Plurk-up” is just GROSS.
- Josh explains how FriendFeed sucks up and aggregates what your friends share, and let you have conversations around any of those things.
- Josh had been resisting FriendFeed, but two things pulled him in - the conversations that were happening, that he was missing out on, and social gravity. Josh goes where his friends, his network, are. Enough of them are on FriendFeed now to make it worth it.
- The joy you feel when you discover a new, efficient way to connect with people and read (RSS, Twitter, now FriendFeed)
- FFToGo.com - nice mobile version
FriendFeed is the source of all joy in the universe? - The addiction factor - isn’t FriendFeed just one more time sink?
- It’s a balancing act - you have to be judicious on what you follow - feeds, Twitter, or FriendFeed. But the social aspect (things bubble up) of FriendFeed make it more efficient/potent, so you don’t have to search and dig for the interesting/important stuff.
- The other obstacle - the “real time factor”. Interruptions - tweets pop up, distract.
- Josh and Brian both have major FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out.
- You have to train yourself to ignore, and to be compelled to read every. single. thing.
- Use tools like Summize to track your name, topics, so you don’t miss the REALLY important stuff, and then be OK with the fact that most of the rest of it is a river. Stand in the middle, let it flow by, grab what’s interesting when you have time/attention.
- FriendFeed helps with FOMO, because the interesting stuff bubbles up
- Brian and Josh argue about which of us is more ADD.
- Unread Item Syndrome - all these made up dysfunctions that we have…
- Use a client like Twhirl or Twitterrific.
- Be the boss of the tools, not the other way around
- Training for “social media tools for software engineers” that Josh is working on, Brian to be a Guinea Pig
- We can geek out over anything - never had a problem filling time.
Are you thrilled that the show is back? Mad that we changed something? Think we suck for being gone so long? Just want to say hi? Post a comment, and let us know! Seriously. We crave the validation that your feedback brings. You have no idea how fragile our self esteem really is…
(This post started as an email to @verso on Twitter, in response to her question “I’m wondering how much longer #pdx will take it from Twitter. “Come on baby, you know I love you” won’t work forever will it? Alternatives?“) I had been trying to reply via Twitter itself, but it’s been either down or eating my updates - oh, the irony!)
FriendFeed finally sucked me in this week. I finally “got” it. It’s the next logical step up from Twitter, because it is a superset of Twitter - I see my friends tweets, often before I do through Twitter itself, and I can reply to them once, and have it go to both places (FriendFeed and Twitter). Plus there’s so much MORE FriendFeed can do - import and show people’s blogs, shared items, photos, etc. It kicks ass, seriously. I highly recommend you give it a try. Twhirl, the popular Twitter client, works with it (though I haven’t got that working well yet), and http://fftogo.com is an awesome mobile interface for it for your phone (looks and works great on my iPhone).
The thing that got me to accept it (I’ve been resisting for a while now) was there was finally enough “social gravity” - enough of my network was participating there, and there were conversations happening on FF (a LOT of them) that I was totally missing out on because I was staying completely in Twitter.
It’s not a Twitter-alike, with a few differentiating features (like Jaiku and Pownce). It’s a whole new, better, crack-like way to interact with people. It is the evolution of what Twitter started.
I’m jabancroft on FriendFeed - feel free to subscribe to me. I’m still going to use Twitter as my “micropost” method, until it croaks completely. But in my FriendFeed, you’ll also see my blog posts. photos I upload to Flickr, things I share on Google Reader (with my commentary), and more. And the coolest thing about it all is that there’s CONVERSATION happening around ALL of those things. It’s amazing. I love it.
So come join me. You don’t have to give up Twitter, or Jaiku, or whatever. You can connect them up in FriendFeed. But don’t limit yourself to just one channel of conversation, when you can have so much MORE on FriendFeed. It’s fun, it’s easy, it makes me smarter, and a big part of my network is already there. I’m convinced!
Update: Phil mentioned below that he posted his comment to this on FriendFeed, and that reminded me of something. If you’re not a FriendFeed user, you’d be missing out on the discussion around this post that’s happening there. That’s why I’ve installed Glenn Slavin’s excellent FriendFeed Comments WordPress Plugin. If you are looking at this post on its own page, where you can see the “normal” comments people have left, scroll down, and you’ll also see the “Likes” and comments that people have left for this post on FriendFeed. Post get sucked up into FriendFeed, and great discussion happens there, but this plugin brings the relevant discussion back here, to the original post, so you don’t miss out if you’re not on FriendFeed. I love it.
- Breakfast of Champions: free Mt Dew from Intel, and a bag of bulk Sour Patch Kids from WinCo. Ah, sugar; my muse, my enemy, my fuel… #
- @Jerry_Makare Thanks, I think, for the Mario Batali comparison. But just so everyone knows, he swiped the orange Crocs thing from me! #
- Oops. I had accidentally posted that last logged in as @pulseofintel. That’s what I get for having multiple Twitter personas. #
- Well, it only took a day for the “Intel says no to Windows Vista” news to spread ALL OVER Twitter and FriendFeed. #
- @lightingdiva Do it. You won’t regret switching. You can even run Windows (Vista or XP) in a virtual machine if you *really( need it. #
- @banannie Another reason I don’t like Plurk. The term “Plurk-up” is just GROSS. #
- @Jerry_Makare I know who Mario is. I just have a make believe grudge against him for biting my “orange Crocs” style. #
- I’m hungry. No car today (mine’s still in the shop), and I’m still boycotting the Intel cafeterias. Guess that means Cup Noodles again! #
- Booking my travel/hotel for SIGGRAPH2008 in L.A. in August. #
- @davechen Intel’s doing a blogger meetup at SIGGRAPH, to show off some cool new Larrabee stuff. Wanna come? #
- @JoshProStar No, it’s not possible to Twitter too much. Just look at my tweet count. Or @scobleizer’s. #
- @davechen It’s on the 12th, at the conference. Email me (joshua.bancroft AT intel.com) and I’ll get you on the list, send details, etc. #
- @jezlyn Kindle tip: use the “sleep” mode to lock keys (cool photos!). Get free books from manybooks.net, feedbooks, Creative Commons, etc. #
- @marusin You bought a Kindle? Again? I knew you couldn’t stay away for long. Welcome (back) to the club! #
- @blath re: lunch delivery it doesn’t work so well out in the suburbs, at a giant company’s campus. Not many options, hard to give driections #
- @blath but if I’m going to keep up my Intel cafe boycott, I should probably look into delivery options. Thanks for the idea! #
- @SarahCofer you’re looking for something to record a video stream? There are some apps that do that. Or a screen recorder app like CamStudio #
- @SarahCofer link to CamStudio (free, open source Windows screen recording software): http://camstudio.org. Takes some experimentation. #
- @bobduffy I don’t know what book @mediumtall referred to, but if there’s one book of principles to build a community on, it’s Cluetrain. #
- @bobduffy Subject to Change sounds interesting. I’ll have to check it out (even more likely if they have a Kindle version!) Thanks! #
- @kegill @SarahCofer yes, SnapzPro is a good screen recorder for Mac. I use and love iShowU ($20), and people RAVE about ScreenFlow ($99). #
- @verso You’re getting Twitter 503 errors because too many people in Portland are tweeting, and summoning the Failwhale. #
- Toying around with the idea of turning my iPhone 1.0 into my house’s webserver/SSH tunnel after I get an iPhone 3G. Geek plusity plus! #
- @ahockley I am. Are you the gatekeeper? #
- Just created a profile for myself on Whoisi, because @davewiner said all the cool kids were doing it. http://whoisi.com/p/759 #
- @blath Yeah, I’m not sure how whoisi will handle malicious/unwanted edits. Seems open like a wiki, maybe the same community quality model? #
- Welcome another really smart Intel person to Twitter - @JoshProStar. He runs the Open Port vPro Expert Center: http://tinyurl.com/4xnbrr #
- Someone tell @JoshProStar (I can’t D him yet) that he can find more Intel people to follow by looking at who @pulseofintel follows. #
- @jmoriarty Thou shalt leave no beehive un-kicked, man. Beehives are EEVIL. #
- Huh. FluidApp (http://fluidapp.com/) is actually pretty cool (build site-specific browser “widgets”). Going to experiment with it. #
- Guess what? I’m reading the internal Intel blogs again. Had to install FeedDemon in my Windows VM, since the feed won’t work otherwise. #
- So, my Intel Twitter peers, what are the good internal feeds I should subscribe to (besides the main blog feed). D me or email me with ideas #
- @bobduffy Those are the external feeds, right? I’ve got all of those (but that’s a cool pipe - thanks for sharing! #
- Excellent post from @kenekaplan on what the “Intel Insiders” program is and isn’t about. Thanks, Ken! http://tinyurl.com/6yak3k #
- Enjoying some Cup Noodles for lunch, in honor of @grigs’s awesome #ip3 presentation: http://tinyurl.com/3hftvt #
- Wha? My buttons/links to “Like” and “Comment” something in FriendFeed just disappeared. Is FF getting flaky like Twitter? I just got here! #
- @turoczy Who are you talking to? Intel hearts Macs, man! I’ve had one as my main Intel machine for almost 2 years. #
- Oh, dear. I’m digging around in the documentation for the FriendFeed and Twitter APIs. Mulling a Google App Engine app to sync contacts… #
- @donpdonp I only ever found one Windows .exe that doesn’t work at all. Now, if only I knew JSON! Should be easy to diff friends lists… #
- @turoczy In that case, I’d like to lobby to have my Intel salary increased by “$0″. #
- Ruh roh! The NYTimes picked up on the fact that Intel decided NOT to deploy Windows Vista, but stick with XP. http://tinyurl.com/4md6rk #
- @LeStew Go read the article. I’m not going to offer my opinion on Vista. I don’t speak for my employer, et cetera, et cetera… #
- Are you a javascript person? @juliejulie sends word that her husband, @nosredna, launched a blog for JS developers http://tinyurl.com/4zsfcf #
- Just commiserated on the phone with @britopian about internal communications hurdles, silos, and the vagaries and challenges of life @ Intel #
- @turoczy I would say that “viral passalong” is a term from the Department of Public Health and Safety. #
- @lightingdiva It will be interesting to see what the longer term consequences of skipping Vista are. ‘Course, I skipped Vista for a Mac. #
- Driving Rachel’s car today, used to be our only car (2002 Subaru WRX wagon). Every time I drive it I’m reminded of how much I love it. #
- @marccanter4real Tell FriendFeed to import your Twitter, then it’s automatically in both places. #
- I think FriendFeed has developed enough social gravity in my world that I’m going to start paying more than sporadic attention to it. #
- I’ve let FriendFeed raid my Gmail contacts to find people, but I’m still missing some. Is there a way to let it raid Twitter contacts? #
- I wish there was a way on FriendFeed to track what I’ve already read, and what’s new. #
- @mattg What FriendFeed, um, feed do you subscribe to? Everything from all of your friends? Firehose! What filtering do you use? #
- Just had to replace the batteries in my Apple Wireless Keyboard (the slim aluminum one) for the first time since I got it in February. #
- I really, really need a way to tell FriendFeed to add the 470 people I follow on Twitter. Diff-ing the list by hand is killing me… #
- @mnology Thanks for the tip. FF says that app is broken, and it’s Windows only, but thanks for thinking of me. Oh, I’m following you now. #
- @mnology More like “you bank on the Twitter API, you lose.” #
- And of course, it’s all tied in to my linkblog, FriendFeed, Facebook, etc. I’m all about connecting stuff together today! Also, Hype Machine #
- So apparently Intel is launching some big “Brand Ambassador”/blogger thing. I’m hearing about it first from Twitter. See anything broken? #
- @chrisheuer How come I’m hearing about this Intel blogger thing from my Summize/Twitter search feeds? Seems like a communication FAIL. #
- Let me amend. I’m not claiming that Intel should advise me of everything it does in “social media”. But why leave employees out of it? #
- Or maybe it was just me, and all the other Intel employees that are active in this stuff were clued in. In which case, I’ll shut up and cry. #
- @jmoriarty Yeah, I guess S&M has gotten widespread enough at Intel that I can’t keep up with all of it. BTW, social media = S&M from now on! #
- Am I the last person to discover http://fftogo.com, an awesome mobile interface for FriendFeed? It’s beautiful on the iPhone. Bookmarked! #
- Just came across something hilariously ironic about Intel that I don’t think I can blog externally. Might move me to post internally. #
- @turoczy Interesting that you import your tweets into FriendFeed via the Twitter RSS feed, instead of the API. Is there a reason/advantage? #
- Today has been a very interesting day. FriendFeed has sucked me in, big time. Crack-like rush to the brain, compulsive checking, and all. #
- More info on the “Intel insiders”: http://tinyurl.com/5wanh5. It was a good idea when I suggested it 2+ years ago, too. No sour grapes here! #
- I suggested an “ambassadors” program to the guy who does Intel’s ad buys in early 2006. I guess I’m glad they finally implemented it. #
- In case you were wondering, I did, in fact, come up with every good internet idea Intel has ever had, and will take credit for same. #
- @intelinsider I’m a little worried at the lack of transparency. How bout a post explaining it, and a list of bloggers so we can follow them? #
- @JF10 What makes you say Ambassador programs suck? Honest question - I’d like to know why. #
- @gwalter Dude, Google bought Jaiku in Oct. of last year: http://tinyurl.com/2xny52 I don’t go to their website often, either, but dang! #
- @chartier How will we be able to identify the second printing of @applehacks (besides your bio being there)? I want to get the right one. #
- Just spent HOURS adding people I follow on Twitter to FriendFeed. BY HAND. There are still gaps. That sucked. Data Portability, anyone? #
- Everyone’s talking about how fast the Intel-compiled version of Firefox 3 for Mac is. Is it that much faster than the Universal Binary? #
- @bobduffy Substitute “email” or “phone” for “social media”, then see if what you’re asking makes sense. It’s just another medium. #
- Car in the shop. Filled the radiator AND the coolant reservoir, and miracle of miracles, it stayed cool on the way here. Maybe there’s hope. #
- Glad my mechanic is a SHO guy. His personal car is the twin of mine. Stan at Fords & More in Aloha. #
- Whoa. Twitter RSS feeds ARE back. #
- Now what about “with friends”, so PulseofPDX and a half dozen other mashups I made will start working again? Perhaps there’s hope! #
Quoting myself from an email I wrote this morning, because this is my blog, and I can do that if I want.
The most compelling reason to promote “social media” is the power it has to let people create connections with each other. By turning the internet into a way for people to express themselves, and know what their peers (in all senses of that word) are expressing, these tools build a network of human connections and trust, which can then be used to commiserate, collaborate, entertain, educate, complain, overthrow, take a stand, and just plain have fun. It is truly empowering.
I always put “social media” in quotes, because of my uneasy relationship with the term, but we have to call this bunch of tools something.
Apply that to how you think of and use this stuff, and see if any interesting thoughts shake out.
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