I originally signed up at Facebook (when it was still closed to the public) because higher ed used it and I work full time in higher education. I have branched out my Facebook relationships, but I won’t add just anyone who adds me. I like to keep Last.fm to those I know or are interested in similar music. I use Ravelry to connect with knitters and crocheters. Now I do have overlap on some of these networks and that is pretty awesome but normally I don’t want to talk web 2.0 in a yarn forum. Specialized networks should be used for the specific types of relationships they foster to get the most benefit from them.

Back to Twitter static; I had to clean it up. I was missing messages from people who I really enjoyed reading updates from. One of the best tools to start my purge was Twitter Karma. Twitter Karma pulled in all my followers and friends and sorted them. First I could see who I follow but that doesn’t follow me. If you aren’t famous or a service, I would appreciate the follow-back. If you don’t follow me back, maybe you aren’t interested so I re-evaluate if I am really interested in your updates. Non-followbacks cut dozens of my follows out.

Twitter Karma shows how long ago user updated.

Next was the mutual relationships. I sorted these by Last Updated and cut everyone who hadn’t updated in at least the last 90 days then reviewed everyone who hadn’t updated in 30-60 to see if that was just their way of doing things before purging them.

I have cut hundreds of people and it’s sad I even let my account get to the point where I have to do that. The last phase of my Twitter purge is to watch my timeline and if I don’t recognize a friend or they tend to tweet things I am not interested in, I am manually removing them. It’s nothing personal, I am just not interested. There might be a few that get caught in the cuts that I want back, and I am sure I will find them again.

The moral of the purge is that it is easy to go to excess with social networks. If the network you are using isn’t teaching you something, connecting you with others, or benefiting you then either cut the site or figure out how to fix where it went wrong. I miss Twitter, hopefully this will get me back in gear again.

Here are some of my favorite links this week, in case you missed them:

Awk, Nawk, and GNU Awk Cheet Sheet – Skip the man pages and Google by keeping around this handy cheat sheet.

Make a Custom iPod Cover – Dollar Store Crafts blog has a post on how to take those cheap clear platic iPod covers and insert papers or other goodies to give your iPod a designer look. The best part is it is cheaper than a latte!

Cobra Starship is Broadcasting Recording of New Album – Absolute Punk has posted that the band Cobra Starship is broadcating the recording of their new album on Stickam as well as Twittering when something cool is going on.

DIY: Homemade Windshield De-Icer Fends off Frost – Lifehacker has a post on how to make your own windshied de-icer. The best part of this recipe is that it can actually prevent icy windshields in addition to clearing them off.

Solar Energy: Some Tips – MAKE Magazine has some tips on solar energy you might want to be aware of if you are thinking of trying to at least edge off the grid. The post includes information about what works and what doesn’t so you don’t find yourself with expensive solar panels and a gigantic energy bill as well.

Did you find a blog post especially insightful or inspiring this week? Let me know in the comments.

feedback87 @linuxchic lol oh man windows. you cant live with it but you cant live without it

zemote @linuxchic you can’t forget active X, that is the bain of my existance

beaker133 @linuxchic I work on a win98 box. enough said

beaker133 @linuxchic plus barracuda firewall, and in house test machines that i fix before fixing customers crap :)

Penguin @linuxchic Internet Explorer, and anyone who uses it as a primary browser.

techpickles @linuxchic Windows, and most things Java (I’m looking at you Eclipse!)

RaggedEdge @Linuxchic: Siemens APT, it’s a DOS program, it sucks, it runs in 640K low memory with a special graphics driver loaded high.

RaggedEdge @Linuxchic: Can only use the serial port to download programs to a special controller, takes 45 to 50 minutes for big programs.

RaggedEdge @Linuxchic: During about half of the downloads, it locks up, thus requiring to start over. Fun when a whole brewery is waiting on you.

btn @linuxchic – Anything that requires me to fire up Windows in VMware – even worse if it requires me to actually boot the machine into Windows

feedback87 @linuxchic got to be twitter so far lol you?

vgan @linuxchic I nominate Altiris and Iron Mountain Connected Backup (Server and Clients). Citrix Metaframe XP would be a runner up.

linuxchic My most hated? Windows is my default answer. Most hated software varies depending on the day. :P

nikolaidis @Linuxchic: Symantec Antivirus (now known as Endpoint Security).

HighDef @linuxchic No doubt about it; MS Windows is definitely both a standard AND the crappiest piece of crap hindering technological advancement!

danielho @linuxchic Are you goading me into saying that I hate Windows? OK OK, I do!!! Esp. Vista and MS’s idiotic server software. Go certify that!

It’s funny to say ouch when you get hit in a video game since it doesn’t really *hurt*
~and~
Show of hands, who else yells or such in the *heat* of video game play?

This is when you see how entertaining Twitter can be! Here are the replies those tweets generated:

ldmosquera: the measure to which you say “ouch” in a videogame, is the measure to which it successfully captures you. So it’s all good.
bblboy54: *raises hand*
miyako_houou: I will at times make some sort of weird vocalizations like a dying whale or somesuch if I’m really close to dying, rarely though
jeffisageek: i am raising my hand
linuxchic: Video game that made me yell the most: MicroMachines for NES…no brakes! :)
popefelix: You should hear how loud I get when I’m playing GTA
ldmosquera: I don’t yell, but I enjoy games which silently scare me to death. Also applies to movies. Immersion FTW!
warmaiden: I do. And my siblings. So far back as I can remember. Atari!!
dlpasco: Doom 2, followed by Half-Life
ldmosquera: Scariest games I’ve played: Undying, System Shock 2, Doom 3. The original Alone in the Dark was a living agony to play too.
sbspalding: what about Ecco the Dolphin. Most frustrating game ever programmed.
linuxchic: I have to say E.T for Atari 2600 wins most frustrating game ever programmed since it was *impossible* to win.
bblboy54: as a kid I still had hours of fun with ET for atari but I remember wondering what the point was :)

What about you?

If you would like to get an invite to SnapFoo.com’s early beta, send me an email or a direct message on Twitter with your email address and I will send one your way.

Per their site, SugarStats makes it simple to track, monitor and share your blood sugar levels and other key statistics to help you manage your diabetes online. Having seen the effects of diabetes and the work that can go into maintaining your health I can see this service being very valuable to people that have busy or active lifestyles. If you use Twitter, you can also send a direct message to their service Twitter name containing your stats plus optional comments. The stats get imported into your SugarStats account along with the comments and the date and time the message was received.

No more forgetting what your glucose levels were, worrying about a dead battery in a blood meter whipping out your history, or having a pad and pen handy for jotting notes down. Most people carry their cell phones with them everywhere they go and by using Twitter and SugarStats they will also always have a place to keep their records. Especially handy is the comments for noting at the time exactly how you are feeling, eating, or doing.

SugarStats has also integrated a social networking type option within their service. You could share your stats, collaborate, and exchange messages with those you share with. At the very least this might be valuable for your doctor. Graphs and trends are created from your data so that you can easily visualize your history.

Not a Twitter fan? You can also send your stats to your SugarStats account via email or their mobile web through your phone or PDA browser.

It was a little before this time that I discovered I wouldn’t be able to be a part of the Twitter stream as I had previously thought. My SMS to web and web to SMS wasn’t working. “Perhaps the gateway is down,” was the response from T-Mobile customer service. SMS to and from other phones worked fine. Thank goodness for the mobile Twitter page although I couldn’t keep up with tweets very well through that.

After hanging out in line for a while we learned that the wristband didn’t really mean anything but the color of our flier determined when we would get in. Everyone that did not preorder had a white flier and would be going last regardless of when they picked it up. My extra trip to Barnes and Noble earlier that afternoon to get a wristband and flier meant nothing in our placement as people just now arriving were getting the same thing. The people with red fliers were the first in and they were the ones that preordered and picked up their fliers very early in the day. Next up were the yellow fliers (also preorders) then blue fliers; the preorders that didn’t appear till the line had formed. Our white flier guaranteed us last.

Barnes and Noble staff did a good job separating the reds and yellows and getting them into the store in a timely manner. The ugliness didn’t start until they decided the one long line of blues and whites should be reshuffled. Basically they told everyone near the front of the line with a white paper to move to the back of the line. The people with white papers in the middle then got to be in the front of the white paper line. This was really aggravating because we had been there standing for much longer than some.

Then the line cutting started. I guess I am a little naive because I was disappointed to find that the majority of folks cheating in line were the older folks with the white hair and the suburban housewife looking folks. I had an older lady yell at me that she had been there for 2 hours (compared to my 5) and how dare I cut in line (he had been making her way with her husband through the line one group a a time for a while). After I asked her how long she had been there and retorted with my time she demanded that I prove I had an “exclusive while paper and blue wristband”. Understand, there was a table with white papers and wristbands about 10 feet from us that they were still handing out to late arrivals. Eventually I lost the will to hold my spot in line and just let her pass. Sometimes it just isn’t worth it.

I want to add that there were more cool people than mean ones. I had some lovely chats with fellow line waiters about the movies and the books. Over all it was a lot of fun to be part of a community like that for a little bit. This is the first time I have ever stood in line for anything.

Once inside the store the line moved crazy fast and it didn’t take long to get to the counter. My friend purchased two copies of the book and a set of audio CDs. They had plenty in the stock so there was no limit to the amount you wanted to purchase. I resisted buying one on the spot since I had already ordered one.
So, here I sit seeing tweets from people that are done reading and wishing I had bought a copy after all that line waiting because mine still hasn’t been delivered. Apparently I am not alone as there are also quite a few tweets from people wondering where their order is.

NOTE: At a little after 1:00 AM CDT my SMS to and from web miraculously came back to life and it appears all my crazy Tweets went through along with my SMS “test” messages. Even though T-Mobile doesn’t typically queue undeliverable SMS messages, the appeared to have done so last night. Sorry to those that got a storm of messages from me. The conspiracy theorist inside me wonders if the gateway was “down” to avoid issues with the spoilers and lawsuits. The technologist in me wants to think that so many people were Twittering or using other SMS type services last night that the gateways just couldn’t handle it. I think the latter theory is cooler. =)

Twitter is gloriously simple and that is what makes it so beautiful. What are you doing in 140 characters or less. Do you really need to say more than that to tell people what you are doing? If you do, that is what blogs are for. I send all tweets (with the exceptions of feeds) straight to my phone and should one contain a link to something that looks better on the computer when followed I check it out when I get back to a desk.

The TwitterGrams became quite popular especially with Robert Scoble this week. They were driving me bonkers because I HAD to follow a link to find out what the tweet was about. Do I really want to do this from my phone? No. Do I want to save more than a dozen tweets to lookup when I get back to my desk? No. Twitter gives me all I need to know in 140 characters or less and should I want to know more I have the option of following links. TwitterGrams give me no info other than a TwitterGram has been sent. I have NO inkling what it is about. I compare them to partial RSS feeds; the title of the post and a sentence doesn’t tell me enough about the post itself to warrant a click through when I am trying to parse through thousands of feeds every week. Half the time I feel duped after clicking through only to find out it is something I didn’t want to read or that the title had nothing to do with the post. I still click through with full RSS feeds; feeds are not a substitute for site visits, just a way for me to get through more info in less time. I am anti-click. ;)

Back to the topic of TwitterGrams… I think they have a place after listening to one finally. They are actually really nifty but I am not convinced they are a replacement for a text post to Twitter. If Twitter is micro-blogging, then TwitterGrams are micro-podcasting. Do I have an idea of where they belong? Not yet.

On the topic of Jaiku (which is all I could seem to tweet about on Thursday):

I signed up for a Jaiku account on the sly when the whole Leo Laporte and TWiT v. Twitter thing went down so I could see what was going on over there. I never really used it alot for several reasons:

1. No US SMS
2. All my friends were at Twitter
3. No US SMS

On the other hand, there are a lot of neat things that Jaiku does that Twitter doesn’t. Jaiku links to the thread of replies (not just the last reply) so you can see everything that is being said if you don’t have friends in common with everyone replying. Jaiku has built in feed support so that you can use it to update everyone on everything you have all over the internet. Jaiku allows pictures and icons in your posts as well. which makes things pretty. And lastly, Jaiku has channels which allow you to post to everyone in a group that might have something in common with you but that aren’t on your friends list. Truly fancy.

Because of these fancy features I headed over to Jaiku for a day. I added some more contacts including some friends from Twitter. I created a channel. I wrote some updates. Then I pretty much stopped using it again. It is cluttered. All these feeds coming from people fill up my screen and frankly, I just don’t want to see that much crap in my stream. I am just as guilty as others on this as I have every feed from every where including my Wakoopa feed updating to Jaiku. Do you think my contacts really give a rats ass when I start using Firefox or switch over to check my email in Outlook? I don’t think so. Some networks don’t need to be running as a lifestream and should be checked manually if you want an update. (Note: I was reminded through a comment on Jaiku that users do have the ability to unsubscribe from contacts feeds without removing the contact.)

That said, I also started using Pownce. I felt special when I got hooked up with an invite last weekend and I signed up for the “exclusive” (*cough *cough) network, posted that I had invites available then gave them all out in a matter of hours. Pownce is nice, but I haven’t gotten good use out of it yet although I would LOVE to have something like that at work so I am not plagued with regular IMs. On Pownce I feel like I need to post something with quality content then I wind up frustrated and don’t post at all. Some of the finest tweets at Twitter (not saying my own) are random thoughts. I have writers block at Pownce.

To sum it up, this week I walked a mile in someone else’s 2.0 shoes and found myself coming back home to Twitter. There are a few features I would like to see added, but at the same time the simplicity is what makes it so great. Honestly, I hope the fine people at Twitter never get too development happy and just continue to work to make the backend application strong.

Yes, this is Windows. Yes, this box is sitting on my desk. Unfortunately, I have to have Windows on at least one computer at work. Sorry folks, hope this doesn’t lower my cred. ;) Anyway, you can get the Twitter app here: http://theflexblog.com/?p=20 and if you don’t have it, you will need the Apollo Runtime.

I love my commute. There is an occassion a few times a month when I wish I could get home faster but overall I like my drive to and from work. It takes me an average of 30 minutes to get in every morning and about 45 minutes to get home every night if there are no accidents to slow me down. I use the time to listen to podcasts and to make mental lists. I use the time to make plans about my websites and blogs. It is my “ramp up to work” time and “wind down” from work time.

I gripe a lot at discourteous annoying drivers, crazy out of control drivers and slow people who make my commute last longer than it should. I dump all my stress and aggressions out through those expletive filled outbursts within the safety of my car and arrive to my destination ready for what lies ahead.

For the last three years I had lived in a rural area and had a five minute commute to pretty much anywhere in town. I hated it. I love the city with it’s congested roads and interstates and how it forces me to spend time alone in my car. I love my daily commute. I hope I never have to carpool, I would hate to lose my “me time”.

Sorry it has been a few weeks since I started this series. I have been synchronizing my posts between Vox and Linuxchic.net and I think I need to separate them again. Linuxchic.net will go back to being mostly techie, with the exception of a few posts series such as this one and Vox will be for mostly other types of posts. I am also going to stop the Twitter updates from my blog because frankly, I don’t think it follows Twitter etiquette  to tell the whole world every time I link to a story I like.  If you want to follow me on Twitter and read where I am, what I am eating, and other random things I might be doing, visit my Twitter page and add me. I also feed my Twitter updates to Jaiku.