Networking

Don’t fake friend me

In Annoying, Flickr, Networking on 25 February 2008 with no comments

Someone on Flickr added me as a contact — and promptly removed me — knowing very well that I’d get notified about the new contact.

Not cool and very sleazy.

I had one of his photos faved, but not anymore. You’re on my bad list. Good day. I said good day!

Why private messages are lame

In Email, Internet, Networking on 17 September 2007 with no comments

I want the fewest amount of inboxes as possible. Having to read private messages from multiple social networks detract from that.

I like that Flickr and Twitter send the full text of the message to your email address (if you request those notifications). Plus, Flickr allows you delete all your inbox messages easily – Twitter needs to add this feature.

Facebook and Myspace don’t send the content of the private message in your email. Instead, you have to click through and log in to read it – terrible!

I have my email address listed everywhere. Why can’t you just go with that?

Post inspired by Paul Stamatiou, “Why Private Messages Suck“

Pownce invites

In Networking on 5 July 2007 with 2 comments

I have six Pownce invites, which is a slightly more feature-rich service than Twitter. Six commenters will receive it, as long as you include the following criteria:

How do you know me? Where did we first “meet”?
Are you subscribed to this blog? Why or why not?
Do you know what Twitter is? If so, why do you use it?
Your email address (not in the comment itself), so I can get the invite to you.

If you want to write this on your own blog then link to it here, that’s perfect!

Update 7/8/07: Okay, so nobody that reads this wants Pownce. Oh well. If you change your mind, I was given six more invites this evening. I have eleven left.

Twitter helped me meet with a complete stranger

In Life, Networking on 4 May 2007 tagged Twitter with 2 comments

View on Flickr

Earlier this week, Chris Marsden Twittered and wrote a blog post about his coming to Pasadena for a few days. So, we had a brief dialog through Twitter, and decided to meet for dinner (at Ichima Sushi) on Wednesday night. I figured he hasn’t had that too often, so it sounded fun. I was right, so he was at my mercy. Fortunately for him, the majority of sushi I order isn’t raw.

We talked about a lot of stuff in the duration of the evening, and didn’t call it quits until 3 AM. Chris is awesome!

The topics included:

Christianity, church, ministry, community
money, work
politics
cell phones, computers, Windows Vista, Macs
blogs, RSS, SEO
music (Christian vs. Secular)

Did I mention that it was a lot of stuff?

So what’s significant about this?

First, we didn’t know each other. I subscribed to his blog since January because of his “Kinkless and my Hipster PDA” post. He hasn’t really been writing much lately about productivity, but I’ve kept subscribed to him anyway. At some point, he got a Twitter account, so I added him.

I don’t think we ever talked or sent e-mails. I had an idea of what he looked like, as opposed to him, because he had no clue what I looked like. (I’m not too shy. I’ve been on Flickr for awhile!) He wasn’t subscribed to my blog for awhile because he switched news readers, and never re-subscribed, so he didn’t see any of my posts or photos for awhile. Yet, he Twittered that he was in Pasadena, and we ended up meeting.

I’ve never done this before, but it was cool how we spontaneously met up. I wish I would’ve told my friend, Bill, to come. He loves talking about most of the things I listed above. I simply didn’t realize that’s what we had in store.

I know we could all interact through our blogs and e-mail. Twitter — or any of the other similar services — is meant for cell phones, and it seems to help bring us together that much more. I wish I could’ve recorded a podcast, but I couldn’t prepare any questions ahead of time.

What do I suggest to you? Get out of your comfort zone! Subscribe to people that share similar interests, and talk to them; you never know what will happen! In the future, I hope I get more chances to do this kind of stuff, especially if it doesn’t heavily rely on money.

Chris, it was great talking and listening to you! I learned so much, and you’ve helped me realize that some of the things that are on my mind aren’t exclusive to me. I’m sure there’s great things ahead for you — I hope you find time to write a bit more so we know what to pray for.

Linksys WRT54GL and DD-WRT v23

In Networking, WiFi on 28 July 2006 with no comments

Today, I was finally able to buy a new wireless router. The DD-WRT wiki recommended the Buffalo WHR-G54S as the cheapest and best price/performance 100% compatible wireless router. However, since Mwave only keeps the major brands in stock at will call, I went with the Linksys WRT54GL.

I could’ve went the safe route and kept the default Linksys firmware, but I didn’t. I felt compelled to use DD-WRT, which is free firmware for several brands and models of wireless routers. If my router will run better with it for free, why not? There’s the possibility that I could’ve turned it into a brick, but I think the chances of breaking it were slim since I had one of the supported devices.

Fortunately, everything went successfully and my new router is running DD-WRT. Dynamic DNS now works again, since my D-Link DI-614+ wasn’t supporting it anymore. (I use Remote Desktop occassionally.) OpenDNS servers are set on my router as well. So many features, so much power! (Not like I’ll use them all.)

Notes:

I have the WRT54GL v1.1.
I flashed the firmware just fine within Firefox.
To find the UTC/GMT time setting, use timeanddate.com. For Los Angeles, California, we’re on UTC -08:00/first Sun Apr – last Sun Oct.
Print the DD-WRT wiki pages to PDF, rather than keeping the instructions open in a bunch of browser tabs. (Try PDFCreator – it’s open-source software!)
I use Dynamic DNS (with DynDNS) so I can just point Remote Desktop to a subdomain with gotdns.com. Since my DSL service (AT&T Yahoo) is on a Dynamic IP, if that ever changes, I don’t need to check it.
I’ll use Hamachi with Remote Desktop if I’m at a Wi-Fi hotspot. If I’m at home, I just use Remote Desktop to connect directly to my main PC without going through Hamachi.

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