Gecko Bloggle

This was going to start as a little piece talking about how much more time I spend at Facebook, but I don’t spend much time AT Facebook, I’ve been spending time chatting with friends VIA Facebook.  See, there’s this chat system, and it’s meant to allow users who are on FB to chat with others on FB, “live.”  It’s their way of keeping you at the site, and hopefully looking at the odd advertisment for whatever it is (I seem to have a well-developed set of side-banner blinders, to the point that I’ve been at “dark underbelly of the web” sites looking for information about a server exploit or something, and had my then-very-young son point at a picture on the sidebar and ask “Where’d that lady’s clothes go?”)

So yeah, so I don’t see the ads, sorry Facebook, sorry Google.  I don’t see ’em.

Even worse though, is that I no-longer even VISIT Facebook any more, since my Blackberry has a Facebook app that handles messages, pokes, photos (including uploading, how “this just in” of me), status updates, and wall posts.  See?  Almost everything you need to do on FB is on my BB.  But no chat.  If I wanted to chat with my FB friends, I had to visit the site.

A few weeks ago, Digsby changed all that.  Digsby handles email notifications, instant messaging, AND Social notifications (including Facebook, including the chat feature).  Don’t need to go there any more.

OH, and it does this weird little chat widget thingie.  I think it’s over on the right there somewhere, right?

Yeah, pretty hip.

So, I’m going to try to write a little more about all the nerdy stuff that’s going on.  I’m learning things again, and that’s good.  I wasn’t learning much at EA any more.  There were things I didn’t know (believe me), but I wasn’t learning any more, ’cause I was too busy writing up documentation for people who wouldn’t read it, so when they freaked out that the latest version of something was (omigod) DIFFERENT, we could try to defend ourselves by showing glossy versions of what was freely and widely available in the way of documentation online.  Sad.

Whew, was that a bitter moment?

Yeah, so if you hit my Delicious list, you’ll see what sorts of things I’ve been linking/saving, including Timbap, which is this crazy “plug a turntable into your computer and then put a timecoded record on the platter, and BOOM, you’ve got the ability to play MP3s…” thing, and I was like “I can spin MP3s on my computer and my turntable for $12 instead of $250?” until I realized that it was just a way to SELECT MP3s and then hit play.  Not a way to control how fast they play (at least, I don’t think so).

What else?  Oh yeah, I went to NewType Computer Workshop and playing with an ASUS EEEPC, which was a sorta-failed attempt at making a laptop for kids.  They crazy cheap (most models under $400), very small, reasonably fast, and look sorta like the big brother to a Nintendo DS (not the Lite, but the big plastic & MarioKart style).  I tried it out for a minute or two, and thought this is really cool, if I was about 30% smaller, all over.  It’s a neat machine, but I am too big for it.  My fingers wouldn’t really ever get “fast” on one of these things, and I didn’t see a mouse for it, so control of the mouse would be non-existant.  All in all, a cute device, but not something an old Road Worrier like me would use to keep in touch with the office.  I have a Blackberry for that, I guess, and I can type pretty quickly on that, so I’m good.

I’ll have to check out Dell’s new “E” series laptops when they hit the shelves.

What kinda nerdery are YOU folks up to?