if a tree falls

Once a little brother, always a little brother

On Friday I joined Facebook to reconnect with friends and widen my networking sphere for spreading the word about my business. Overall, it's a much better experience than my  foray into MySpace. Today I showed Joe my profile, as well as the ways to find friends online.

Joe: What does "Poke him!" mean?

Mel: I don't know. Don't poke him!

Joe: Why?

Mel: Because it sends him a message and I haven't seen that kid since high school. Plus, I don't exactly know what it does.

Joe: Can I poke Evan?

Mel: No! I already friended him! This is my Facebook profile! If you want to poke people, get your own. Here, poke Liza. That's what sisters are for.

Joe: Poke.

Mel: There. Are you happy?

Joe: I guess...

Hey....

Previously: I thought that I might never see...

Electronic Pet Peeves

Surprisingly, I'm in a really good mood this morning. I just encountered a few of these gnats in my morning surfing. Here is a list of just a handful of my electronic pet peeves, both rational and not.

• E-mail replies that don't directly answer a pressing question.
• When people call blog posts "blogs." The blog is the site, an entry is a post.
• IM replies like "that's cool" that do nothing to advance the conversation
• Any forward that promises good luck for passing it along to 300 of your closest friends.
• When a site offers an RSS feed and my reader won't accept it.

More about the weekend, the puppy and catching up with friends coming soon.

The future is here

Forget the iPhone-- did you know that the new Macs will read your writing aloud in the TextEdit program? Yes, I got my MacBook in May, but I just discovered this gem. I made the voice (which sounds like Rosie from the Jetsons, by the way) read an e-mail that I wrote for work. Creepy. But so, so cool.

Quote of the Day

"Who is cleaning up the Nerdgasm?"

- Blurbomat on Apple's iPhone

Someone Else's Space

Chapter the first
Today I opened a MySpace account because, I am a connected, 20-something early adopter. I can find almost anything on the internet in 20 minutes. I have been paid to upload content to websites. I have communicated extensively via e-mail since the age of 14. If everyone in the world is on MySpace, then I should join and see what it's all about.

Chapter the second
Today I deleted my 12-hour old MySpace account. A 22 year old goth kid from a town about 40 minutes away said he thought we would "get along." I'm not sure if that's exactly what he said because I took one look at his e-mail and instantly deleted my account in a spasm of internet-induced shame and horror.

Chapter the third
Today I forgot why I had deleted my Friendster after the first six months.  I joined in the first year (ahem, early adopter), enjoyed talking with friends in a new way, and bought into social networking. However much I enjoyed meeting other people, I didn't like the way you could be hunted down and contacted.

I think I'm just going to let that community have some space.