Technophobes unite

I thought I'd put a girly blog on as Matt seems to be getting ahead of himself with all this technical crap that I for one am not the slightest bit interested in. I am sick of hearing TLA's (three letter abbreviations) relating to TV/PS3/DVD. We have enough cable in our hoose to go the full length of the British Isles, we also have more remote controls than Corby RDC. We have tech magazines laying around all over the place, every other bookmark on the web browser is of a TV/Audio site or a PS3 blog. I am SICK of hearing the words 'look at the picture on that' ' look at the graphics on this game' etc etc. Me and Matt have had a few words about his over use of the PS3 (if you spoke to Matt he would say he NEVER gets to play on it!) He went through a particularly obsessive phase a couple of weeks ago, at which point I decided to call a PS3 crisis meeting. We have agreed now that PS3 is ok in moderation.

We have just come back from a weekend in London catching up with Matt's UNI mates (Al and Wigan) and girlfriends (Jenny and Kate) We went down on the train yesterday and met up with them late afternoon for a few beers and a Polish/Mexican meal last night(!) I know you must all be wondering how you can combine Polish Cuisine with Mexican, and the fact is, you can't. Me being Veggie was never happy about going here anyway and after much unsuccessful nagging at Matt to try and get the restaurant changed decided that I would just have to go along as everybody else seemed quite satisfied at this strange choice of Al's. Me and Matt started drinking about 12.30 yesterday lunch time which was quite foolish in view of the fact that it was going to be quite a late one. I did manage to down a few soft drinks in between pints and halves so when 5 o'clock came I was still relatively sober. After the introductions and a lot off cooing over engagement rings the drinking got underway once more.
A good night was had by all, even more so by Matt who was bordering on paralysis when we all departed each others company around midnight. I took great delight in being sober the next day and reminding Matt just what an animal he had been, needless to say he had no recollection of the past 12 hours! It was a lovely sight from the coffee shop in Kings X seeing Matt slumped over the railings breathing in the traffic fumes. Never one to say I told you say I'm just glad that I insisted that Jenny didn't buy him a Jamiesons whisky in the last pub!
It was a good night though and it was good to see Al in a more civilised environment as opposed to our first meeting at Reading!

Last Wednesday I had my first works night out with my new boss Trevor and the rest of the team, we went to The Westwood which is a swanky restaurant in Beverley, there was about 20 of us in total. At the beginning of the night Trevor told us to drink as much wine and beer as we could and to enjoy ourselves, so, we did! I was so drunk I don't even remember getting home, not to mention going to the bank on the way home to get some cash to pay the cab (that Keelie had already paid once!!) We were drinking a lovely NZ red and I don't think I realised just how much I'd consumed... until I tried to get up on Thursday... and couldn't!! I was still drunk, I felt shocking, I couldn't even stand up! Luckily it was my day off so I popped a couple of headache tablets and crawled back into bed to die in peace. I resurfaced at 1.30pm took two more tablets and laid on the couch for another hour, before then getting in the bath and laying down for another hour, by this time it was almost time to go back to bed. It's fair to say I wasted a very valuable day off!

I've been doing my bit for nature by filling up the bird table in Stew's garden. Stew always complained that he never got any birds (in the garden!) and I told him it's because he's not putting the correct food out. He thinks if he throws a full slice of Warburton Toastie on the garage roof once a week that we will get a myriad of birds flocking round. Well after watching numerous nature programmes and even before that actually I knew we were never gonna have a Blue Peter garden throwing random slices of bread out, so that's when I went to Wilko and got the biggest sack of bird food that I could carry. It took a week or so for the birds to start coming in (I think they wanted to finish the bread on the garage roof first) but they are coming thick and fast now. We've got Robins, Blue Tit's, Great Tit's, Hedge Sparrows, Blackbird's, White Collared Doves, the ubiquitous pigeon and even a squirrel is frequenting the table. It is so funny to watch them all coming in, it gets really busy and I think we might even have to start organising two sittings. The squirrel is the funniest of all, he has to jump up on the plant pots, across onto the recycling bin and then he hops onto the table. I think he must have a family as he fills his face up with nuts and then scurries off down the garden and under the fence, to God knows where, and then within minutes he's back again repeating the sequence.

Parking is proving to be a bit of a nightmare while we're staying at Stew's, luckily for Stew and Kirsty they have car parking space for 2 cars outside their house, but we have to park on the road. Because the houses are so big down the avenues just about every house has 2+ cars so parking is sometimes impossible. So much so that the other night when I parked I was actually 1/3 on double yellows. I didn't give it too much thought as I was more off them than on. I was mortified to find a parking ticket on the windscreen the next day! I have disputed the ticket, and have provided a pic of how I was parked so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I get off with it?!?!?!

Just going back to the subject of remote controls. I once read in one of those silly magazines that chavs read (I must have read it in the dentist's waiting room) that if you have trouble with remote controls and you keep losing them down the back of the couch or under the chair, that you should instead get an old pair of oven gloves and hang them over the arm of your chair to safely store your remote controls!!

Folksonomy and the wonderful World Wide Web (2.0)

web (web) noun
1.A complex, interconnected structure or arrangement.
2.Something intricately contrived, especially something that ensnares or entangles.
3.A membrane or fold of skin connecting the toes, as of certain amphibians.

Now Then! Amazingly I felt like writing a blog again today, as it has again been a while. I must warn you though that this one is again, about technology and will be boring to most of you. It’s also a bit of a rant about social networking sites and the internet too as they have been in the news recently, like for the last 12 years.

So of we go. I’ve been trawling round various blogs, websites, forums, newsgroups, Wikis (during either my lunch hour or at home, Sweeney, in case you’re reading this!) and just generally reading about what the hell this Web 2.0 actually is. It seems to be a bit of a buzz phrase and is quoted all over the place, probably nowhere more than in corporate boardrooms and marketing strategy meetings. And you can guarantee that only a small percentage of people actually know what it means and the other 98% are too embarrassed now to ask what it means as the phrase has been in existence since 2004 apparently!

So I thought I’d have a stab at it.

Usually when you see a version 2 next to something, especially in IT, it means an upgrade of software, hardware or technology. This is where Web 2.0 doesn’t really follow that trend as it’s still the same World Wide Web that was in existence in 1989; Web 2.0 is more about the content, personalisation and how people use it.

Incidentally, for those that don’t know the WWW, was actually started at CERN, in 1989, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (it’s French don’t ask how they came to shorten it to CERN). It started as a way for nuclear physicists to share important information on scientific research from each of their computers. Little did they know what it would evolve into! This site actually brands itself on being the most pointless site on the internet, surely that belongs to this site (In case you can’t be arsed clicking on the last link, it’s Vanessa Felz MySpace page. p.s. I think it’s a wind-up check out some of her friends. Mr.T??? )

Anyway, where was I? Yes, Web 2.0, is a trend that encourages creativity, information sharing and collaboration; exactly what the WWW was invented for, but this second wave is all about you and me posting our own content. The example that you’ll all have heard of is social networking sites, e.g. MySpace, Facebook and maybe Del.icio.us. I only started using Del.icio.us a few days ago and to be honest I’m still not convinced that it’s anything else than an online bookmark depository, enabling you to access your browser favourites from any computer. But others use it for sharing bookmarks; like I said I’m not convinced.

Now depending on your age and/or social ability you’ll either be using some or all of these sites or completely not interested. Now to tell the truth I did use Facebook while we were away as it was a good way of keeping in touch, posting photos, playing scrabble (??), but now that I’m back I’m really not interested in whether an acquaintance from 15 years ago has added the “Which Thundercat character do you most resemble” application. I did try to cut down my use and even delete everyone but my real friends, but it still got on my nerves. Some Facebook addicts in my initial “friends” list updated their status that often I used to get 4 pages of news feed when I logged into it. Some people have over 300 people in their friends, I don’t think I even know 300 people let alone be friends with them. I’ve even heard of one Facebooker who has been sacked from work as he/she was penning less than salubrious comments about their employer on their Wall (must have been someone from Dixons). There will be some people who are reading this who are lucky enough to have never used Facebook and won’t have a clue what I’m on about. You don’t know how lucky you are.

I’ve come to that conclusion that there are 3 types of these social networking whores, and I’ve categorised them below:

1. Under 25’s. This bunch are probably the biggest users and to be honest, these sites are aimed at them. They spend most of the life on the internet anyway, and haven’t really developed the social skills to hold a conversation. Most have at least one ASBO and probably know someone who is/was a member of a Welsh suicide pact. They are members of every single social networking site available and need to spend 4 hours every night, after Eastenders, Corrie and Emmerdale obviously, updating their status, photos, emotion, writing on their 300 friends walls, joining the latest “If I get 1000 members I will name my first born child Charlton Heston” group. They have very pasty skin, ginger/dyed black hair, wear hoods with everything and listen to “My Chemical Romance”. These people are a paradox. They are the most anti-social of all social networking users!

2. 25-40 Year Old’s. These people are either single and trying to cop off with the boy/girl (or both) that they fancied at school or they’re trying to find out what all their “mates” are doing, where they are living and how much they are earning. In fact, I’m surprised that Facebook haven’t added a Salary field in the personal details section for these users, as lets face it, that’s what it all boils down to at this age. People in this group are quite sociable actually, but feel a need to go on these sites as they don’t want to get left behind or feel they are missing the next technological phenomenon.

3. 40 years old (and beyond). Let’s face it, people on Facebook over 40 probably signed up by mistake and can’t work out how to delete their profile. There really is no need for people this age to be on Facebook. Usually their profile picture is one from the 1960’s when they were cool and their religious views are probably set to atheist or agnostic as they don’t want to give too much away. They only have a few friends as they can’t find anyone they know. They may have offspring listed as their friends, but only with limited access to their profile.

I read somewhere on a blog some comments people had on a relatively unknown social networking site (can’t remember the name of it). Some users were championing the fact that you could keep some professional friends (work colleagues) separate from other friends and so information you would share with your non-work friends wouldn’t be visible. An example was cited of uploading pictures from a friend’s stag-do for instance. Now, forgive me for stating the obvious, but would you really upload photos that you considered risque onto the internet. Regardless of whether you want your professional colleagues to see them or not, surely common sense would prevail and you wouldn’t do it in the first place. People are getting carried away with this whole concept of publishing everything you’ve ever done on the internet and even more irritating is they think that everyone else is interested in it. Even this blog, for instance, is a little bit “me, me,” or rather “we, we” by this I mean the 1st person plural not urine! The blog was written as much for our sakes as it was for your sakes, as a memento of what we did on our travels and how we were feeling at the time. (Admittedly you could argue that I’m as guilty as anyone for even writing this blog in the first place!)

So, I won’t be using social networking sites such as Facebook anymore. Or MySpace, Bebo, iLike, FriendsUnited, Habbo, Reunion.com, Student.com, etc. However, I will be using Flickr as a means of backing up my photos, not necessarily for sharing them, and Del.icio.us, for again storing my bookmarks online and not sharing them.

And just to wrap it up, a word on the WWW itself. I remember first “seeing” the web in 1993 in the computer lab at Surrey University. A non-professional friend of mine, (he wasn’t in anyway professional at the time although he probably is now), showed me a browser, Mosaic, to be specific, and said “Look at this page, it’s hosted on a computer in the US”. I wasn’t exactly bowled over by it, and said something along the lines of “So what, what’s the point of that, I can’t see that taking off”. I think that comment even beats the one from Surrey University’s Entertainments’ Officer saying, when asked if he wanted to book a band called Oasis in 1993, “No thanks they’re crap. No-one will pay to see them”

Adios,

p.s. Going back to the definitions at the top I think the 2nd one is the most appropriate. Once you use the WWW you’re hooked, or I know I am (and Geoff is)

p.p.s. Folksonomy is a posh word for social bookmarking apparently. You learn something new every day.

p.p.p.s. Check out the links to the social bookmarking sites on the right. Just because I’m not using these sites doesn’t mean some of our many readers aren’t!

Green

Hola, just a quick note to say, obviously I’ve changed the style of our blog to give it a more “green” theme. Everyone seems to be jumping on the green bandwagon at the moment, and we’re no exception. Obviously Michelle’s last post “Keep Britain Tidy” was a lot greener than my last post “If you don’t like computers or technology then don’t read this!”
Well, that’s it for me, I’ve got work to do and all that and should really be getting on with it. See you Soon.