Mika @ the Warfield

For those of you who don’t know Mika, you have probably already heard at least one of his songs. In a good mood, he delivers “fun” music that is very catchy, instantly memorizable, but somehow too generic to have a particular imprint. He’s very young, so he probably is still working on a particular style, but right now he fits the mainstream glam rock category quite well, with other acts like Scissor Sisters. Continue reading

Locked out of Facebook (2): The Reply

The reply without comment: Hi Marco, Facebook has limits in place to prevent behavior that others may find annoying or abusive. These limits restrict the rate at which you can use certain features on the site. You have received a warning because Facebook determined that you were going too fast when sending messages. If you have also been blocked from sending messages, please note that these blocks can last anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Continue reading

Locked out of Facebook

No sooner do I discover the new personals ad on Facebook that I start getting flagged for sending too many messages. It starts with a warning that you are about to exceed your quota for sending messages, that you have to slow down. This message shows up every time you send a message. Then I am shut out: I can use Facebook, can receive and read messages, but cannot send them. Continue reading

The Satanic Verses (S. Rushdie)

Well, it’s a bit early for a review of The Satanic Verses just yet, since I barely have dented the first 20%, so forgive me for sharing preliminary thoughts. On the other hand, the first impression is probably what is going to be leading into the final review, so I probably should share how the beginning feels, alright. I always wanted to read this book. Mr. Rushdie had been heralded as one of the greatest writers of the century, and not having read anything by him was a little dirty secret that I couldn’t confess to anyone, even to me. Continue reading

Facebook apps - personals

I have been following the ascent of Facebook, just like everyone else in the Bay Area that likes technology. The advent of a company that does so much so well is astonishing, especially after considering all the competitors that didn’t do so well. In particular, Facebook opened up their own application to third party app developers. They provided a series of APIs that allow geeks to create add-ons that use the Facebook database and integrate into its user interfaces and communication mechanisms. Continue reading

Back from Whistler

{moszoomimglink:Village and mountain}Ah, after two weeks of snowboarding and finally starting to see some of what Whistler has to offer, I really had a hard time leaving. I mean, the snow was wonderful, the people incredible, the company hilarious… I could go on for hours, waxing lyrically, and instead will focus on plans for another snowboarding trip.

Social Networking (2) - Replacing the Social Graph with Social Gravity

So, after we looked at how {moscontentlink:my primer|I saw Social Networking (SNW) develop}, here is my look at how I see things develop. As I mentioned in the article above, working for Bluepulse made me think about SNW a lot, and I decided the starting point for any conversation on the future of SNW had to be the current standpoint of Facebook. Now, you see, Mark Zuckerberg has been talking a lot about the social graph. Continue reading

Social Networking (1) - my primer

You know, having worked for a social networking startup (Bluepulse) made me spend a ton of time thinking about the purpose of social networking (SNW) itself. I had spent a lot of time on a bunch of different SNW sites, pretty much enjoying just the fun of looking at them, at how they tried to solve a problem, trying to get to the bigger picture. Of course, it all started with Friendster, the grandmother of SNW. Continue reading

com_sync - Starting the project

Like all good open source projects, this one was born out of a frustration. I wanted to be able to write entries for my personal site when off-line, but the only good software I could find to do so, Blogg-X, refused to work for me. The installer for the latest version wouldn’t run on Linux, and the previous version failed to login to a current Joomla site. What to do? Of course, write your own. Continue reading

Microsoft bids $44M for Yahoo!

Ok, the market and I saw this coming: Microsoft just announced last night they were going to start an unsolicited bid for Yahoo! at a share price of $31. There had been rumors (confirmed with the bid) that Microsoft and Yahoo! were talking about a merger, but (as Microsoft confirmed) they went nowhere fast. As an ex-Yahoo!, and one that cares about the company a lot, I am sad to see one of the flagships of the Internet (potentially) disappear, but it was a catastrophe long in the making. Continue reading