MOBODOJO

Long time, no tweet! I finally came up with an idea for my phrind.com domain, and its for kids. 5 2009/12/02
Time flies when you're not having fun. Anyway, found a great deal on 4-port USB 2.0 hubs with a power supply at Walmart. Red tagged at US$15 5 2009/07/12
As always, I endeavor to continue on no matter what. I know I have a lot of loyal readers, but it would be nice to hear from you on occasion 5 2009/06/25
I'm holding on as well as I can, which isn't very well. This economy is eating my family alive, but them's are the breaks. 5 2009/06/25
You can't get the whole app. Just one window. That's stupid. 5 2009/06/10

August makes as good a time to post as any

August 2nd, 2010 | Category: Site News | Leave a comment

Yeah. It’s been a few months since I graced my blog with… what are those things called?… words? Yeah. I can easily say, without equivocation, that this past June and July have represented an unparalleled time in my life that I am not soon eager to repeat. The sad, simple, unavoidable fact remains, however, that life is amorphous and deadly. I will not escape future experiences simply because I lived through these most recent. Mortality does not sit at a desk, mulling over issue reports, and checking off people who’ve had enough. Life doesn’t work in such manners, uncouth or otherwise.

The most recent event, and the one I am willing to talk about, was my recent down-sizing. This came two weeks after my 42nd birthday and one paltry day after the acquisition of a newsed (used, new to me) Saab to replace my increasingly infirm 21-year old 900 Turbo. It was explained to me that the company simply didn’t have the funds to support my position any more. Oddly enough, I had spent the last year explaining to those involved that the managed services industry was changing and that those who didn’t change with it were doomed to go South, in a big way.

Natch.

So, here I am, seeking a new job and hoping to find one soon. This time around doesn’t seem as bad as two years ago when I sent out hundreds of resumes and never got back one response. Today I have an interview and I have sent me CV to a company which looks deeply promising, both for them and for myself.

One of those coincidences which are just too delicious to ignore

May 20th, 2010 | Category: Advertarded | Leave a comment

To set the stage, I’m trying to figure out why Toshiba’s Power Saver software keeps crashing. I get this:

If I were some regular user, I’d probably think that my computer was on its last legs, but this error is quite minor. Since I’m used to this kind of thing, I pop the error dialog text into Google to see how many others are being wrongly afflicted by Toshiba’s poor software quality, and I get this:

If you can’t read that, it is Toshiba’s webserver stating that “An unexpected error has occurred”. Getting an error, results in searching for an error, which causes an error in the place where the original error could possibly be resolved! HA!

Account deactivation is not a valid alternative to account deletion

May 15th, 2010 | Category: Opinionation | Leave a comment

I wouldn’t have even brought this up, really, unless I hadn’t encountered it in two places at once. I won’t even call it a trend yet. In fact, I hope that this article sparks some public discourse of this potential issue and nips it in the bud. What I’m talking about, if not made clear in the title, is that two sites I know of are offering account deactivation instead of outright account deletion. The two sites are Facebook and Ning. I’m sure you’re familiar with Facebook, but you may not be aware of Ning, a site which offers personalized and private social networks.

I found Ning after getting out of Facebook because I still wanted a social network for my friends. I signed up for Ning only to find out that it will no longer be free starting in July and decided it wasn’t for me. While I was able to delete the single group I had created I found that the only option I have to get rid of my account is to deactivate it. This is worse than Facebook’s method of hiding the Account Deletion page and then making it take 14 days before it actually happens, but not by much.

The rationale here seems to be that once you are a member of the site, its tantamount to self destruction to let that member leave for whatever reason. They must have thought that they would simply fix whatever issues the member is having and that everything would be good. In the case of deactivating your account in Facebook, they assume you simply don’t understand how to use the site, and try to redirect you to the Help Center to educate you.

Continue reading Account deactivation is not a valid alternative to account deletion

Diaspora aims squarely at obviating corporate social networks

May 13th, 2010 | Category: Cool Tools | Leave a comment

Yesterday I posted that I am done with Facebook. Today, Facebook’s entire company (according to them) had a sit-down regarding privacy. Another thing that happened today. I received a Welcome Back email from Facebook, even though this was the second time I’d told them I wanted my account deleted. As a result, I spent half an hour in the privacy settings turning off every option, making it so that I would be the only person to see anything, and canceling all 3rd party tool access and canceled yet again.

Last night I found out about Diaspora. Dan, Max, Elliot, and Rafi decided that they, too, had their fill of crap from the likes of Facebook and are now building an open source alternative. They made a video and stuck it up on KickStarter and passed around the news to various sites like Engadget. The idea has very quickly caught on, and their $10,000 goal has been well surpassed. As of 9:30PM in SoCal, they have raised $123,958.00 and they still have 18 days to go.

I very strongly suggest that you go check it out and make a pledge. Support this project and these guys will make it happen. We need something like this. The social power of the internet is a critical tool in the development and growth of the world. It brings people from every walk of life and social background closer together, while services like Facebook only serve their investors and advertisers. Get to it and pass it along!

Facebook is dead to me now…

May 11th, 2010 | Category: Opinionation | Leave a comment

As you mayhaps have divined from the title of this post, I have decided to abandon the trainwreck formerly known as Facebook. I want to make it clear up front that it has nothing to do with any of my friends or anything which anyone I know has done something. This is all on Facebook and their lack of integrity and complete unwillingness to protect their member’s information.

The straw on the proverbial camel’s back was the Free iPad offering. I don’t fall for these scams and I don’t know anyone who would, yet Facebook joined me to a Fan Page which not only linked me to this group without my permission, but also spammed all of my friends. This is unconscionable behavior and I will not tolerate it.

Prior to this particular event, Facebook could not stop screwing around with their privacy policy and kept opting people in to things that members weren’t asked about. Facebook has also modified the privacy settings to make them difficult to use. You can’t even cancel an account without having to wait 14 days!

While I have no proof, I could easily speculate that their financial partners have been putting pressure on them to monetize the site somehow. After all, those Ziinga people have been pounding out millions of dollars in revenues from Facebook members, and I don’t think FB sees any of that. Word is that Facebook is going to change how that all works, and that Ziinga could be creating their own network in reaction.