Ask the Masses

Ask the Masses

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mcwflint posted a message
“I can't see the advantage of following someone on Twitter and Friendfeed. Enlighten me someone. Please”
November 29 at 12:32 pm - Link
FriendFeed
James Williams (willia4) posted a message
“Since Pidgin doesn't support setting XMPP priorty, what's a good XMPP/Jabber client on Windows?”
November 10 at 10:27 am - via IM - Link
FriendFeed
James Williams (willia4) posted a message
“Does anyone use mint.com? How did you assuage yourself of the "OMG all of my financial info is in the hands of random people with a non-subscription-based revenue model!" fears?”
October 15 at 10:17 am - Link
FriendFeed
Charles W. Merritt posted a message
“I HAVE ALWAYS WONDERED ALL MY 52 YEARS OF LIFE THIS QUESTION...I ADDRESS THIS QUESTION TO ALL THOSE SO CALLED RICH/WEALTHY PEOPLE AND FAMILIES....I ONLY GROSS ABOUT $35,000.00 a year....WHAT'S IT REALLY LIKE NOT HAVING TO WORRY WHERE YOUR NEXT PAYCHECK IS COMING FROM; NOT HAVING ANY $$ problems?”
October 14 at 7:34 pm - Link
FriendFeed
Aaron Hood posted a message
“I'm in a student organization that changes leadership from year to year. Because of this yearly change we don't always have web savvy people that can manage a website. I'm looking into using a CMS for the organization that would be easy use for people who aren't the most web-literate. Suggestions?”
September 29 at 10:08 am - Link
I've looked into Drupal, but I'm not sold. - Aaron Hood
Anybody? - Aaron Hood
FriendFeed
James Williams (willia4) posted a message
“Driving to WV from Charleston, SC and back this weekend. Has anyone noticed any gas supply issues in and around Appalachia?”
September 29 at 12:00 pm - Link
FriendFeed
Heidi Jeffers Thibodeau posted a message
“Does anyone know if a laptop can be ordered with spyware intentionally added? Similar to parental controls? (or is that adult controls? LOL) Can it be detected and removed if it is??”
September 23 at 8:59 am - Link
that's questionably legal. Besides, detection is easy and removal is easy, or as hard as a re-install of your operating system. After the age of 18, humans have the right to privacy (even from spouses and other family members). Spyware gets away with it by hiding its intentions in long convoluted contracts for (sometimes not so) legitimate software; which we often dutifully sign without reading, and minimizing the 'personal' information taken. The question becomes; why do you want to have spyware installed? - Gina K
for detection there are a variety of software options out there; but again- legality? - Gina K
I don't want it installed. I don't trust that its not on my own machine. - Heidi Jeffers Thibodeau
I suggest you read the laptop companies privacy notice, conveniently located in any paperwork you might have received with the machine. It should also be on the companies website. Microsoft embeds a minor amount of reporting into its programs (verification of licensing, error reporting etc.), as do most programs, even spyware detectors. How paranoid are you? Do you use Google? What in particular are you afraid of? Whatever It is might be unavoidable or minimizable depending on the level of privacy you want. - Gina K
I don't trust the giver of said machine. But I did open it and I did turn it on the first time. My curiosity is in the extent one would go, I guess.. Is re-installing the OS rocket science? I have the dvd's. - Heidi Jeffers Thibodeau
The only way to be 100% private in the computer world is to never connect to the internet, never connect to a network, and never let anyone have direct access to your machine; How much of this is worth it? As for reasonable safety; check out http://www.microsoft.com/prote... - Gina K
I don't have much to hide.. this is purely privacy, on my part.. I don't want my key strokes being recorded or monitored, either, though. Thanks for your time. - Heidi Jeffers Thibodeau
Heidi - You have to decide how paranoid you are. At the extreme end of the spectrum, the gifter could have installed a hardware keylogger somewhere in the laptop. You'll probably never find it. This would be a LOT of trouble, of course (and I'm not personally aware of any readily-available keyloggers that would serve this purpose), but it's doable for someone who wants it enough. - James Williams (willia4)
I would say you are reasonably safe except in how much direct access said person has to your computer. I would check for a key stroke recorder, (installed after the fact; it would never ship with a computer) if so. This is the easiest way to get information from you. Installing the os is really easy, it just takes alot of time and you have to reinstall ALL the programs you added after you got the machine, and you might need to add a few drivers... - Gina K
In general, reinstalling the operating system from official Microsoft DVDs (or, I suppose, official mainstream computer manufacturer DVDs) should be good enough. If you're concerned about this, I would probably not trust discs that were burned by the gifter (and that's probably illegal anyway if you're using Windows) or provided by a smaller manufacturer you've never heard of. - James Williams (willia4)
discs are sealed still.. box was sealed.. giver has proven not trustable.. - Heidi Jeffers Thibodeau
If this is in the context of a work-issued computer, privacy invasion is both legal and commonplace. It's a myth to think there are legal protections from your employer using any means necessary to monitor what you do on a work-issued laptop. Reinstalling the operating system or circumventing the monitoring tools installed usually is grounds for termination or discipline. - Mark Trapp
(the bits of software that make your hardware work; like your speakers and monitor) The best bet is to put a password on that baby, and give yourself sole administrative power. You can figure out for yourself how to do that by going to the Microsoft help - click on start, click on help and support (if you are a pc user). Or by clicking on mac help in the upper right hand corner of your screen in osx. - Gina K
Thanks everyone. This is purely personal. - Heidi Jeffers Thibodeau
FriendFeed
Aaron Hood posted a link
September 18 at 4:31 pm - Link
The blogosphere says it's probably an elaborate fake, random analysis here: http://page300.blogspot.com/20... - Mark Trapp
Thanks. - Aaron Hood
FriendFeed
Franklin Pettit posted a message
“I want to find blogs on a certain topic. How do you do this? For example I want blogs on Wordpress development. Where can I go and find a directory or listing on a particular subject?”
September 22 at 7:33 am - Link
FriendFeed
Aaron Hood posted a message
“Does anyone know where I can get a download of Myst?”
September 22 at 12:18 am - Link
FriendFeed
Daniel Schildt posted a link
September 2 at 7:48 am - via Reshare - Link
It would be great to get some tips since I need to find some good solutions that could help to get things done. Some needed features would be things like keywords/tags and nicely working search interface. Ability to customize overall layout of system could be also nice thing to have. There will be more or less different users so ability to customize user access levels would be good feature. - Daniel Schildt
FriendFeed
Heidi Jeffers Thibodeau posted a message
“PDF Hosting? Semi-private? Free? Cheap? Need ability to have individual url for each document, for future possible reference (to print mostly).. Its not data sensitive, like personal.. but its not something I really want others to troll through. Any suggestions?”
August 31 at 3:19 pm - Link
Anyone use box.net? - Heidi Jeffers Thibodeau
Scribd.com does this well IMHO. - Joe Perrin
Thanks, Joe. - Heidi Jeffers Thibodeau
Are all documents on Scribd.com indexed by search engines? - Heidi Jeffers Thibodeau
FriendFeed
Jill Howard Allen posted a message
“Anyone have any thoughts on MyEmma or iContact email marketing? Others to consider?”
August 22 at 9:58 am - Link
We use Emma as our email marketing solution of choice. We found them to be really great, and they hold your hand on as much as you need. They're slightly more expensive than their competition per message, but other than that, I highly recommend them. Others we looked at when we did research were Constant Contact, Vertical Response, and Bronto. Constant Contact's support is a joke, Vertical Response was pretty expensive, and Bronto's salespeople were jerks (to put it lightly). - Mark Trapp
Thanks Mark, I really appreciate your comments! - Jill Howard Allen
FriendFeed
James Williams (willia4) posted a message
“I would like to gift my mom with some prints of my least-terrible photographs. My printer's okay but it's not great. What online printing service would you recommend?”
August 2 at 2:39 pm - Link
(Cross Posted From The DSLR Room ( http://friendfeed.com/rooms/ds... )) - James Williams (willia4)
mpix.com ive heard of ,, havent used it - johnpiercy
A friend of mine says that snapfish is good. - Aaron Hood
saw some prints from a friend who is a very serious photographer .. he used Costco ... looked mighty damn fine too me ,,, - johnpiercy
FriendFeed
Daniel Schildt posted a message
“What are the best text editors in your opinion? For web development, programming, writing and taking notes, what you use for those?”
August 5 at 6:03 am - Link
I like TextWrangler (and its big brother, BBEdit) on the Mac. I haven't found one that I like as much on Windows (I'm usually in Visual Studio, though, so it doesn't matter that much.) I've never taken the time to learn VIM as well as I should. - James Williams (willia4)
Notepad++ is a great all purpose tool - David Knight
Cream. Vim. - K Welch
FriendFeed
Andy DeSoto posted a link
July 10 at 4:21 pm - Link
I'm still peeking around, but I don't feel that those "new to blog" would know that your posts are "continued" by clicking the title. If your audience will be coming from a non-online resource, you may wish to address this so those who visit know how to read your full posts. :) - Heidi Jeffers Thibodeau
Agreed with Heidi -- the theme is super clean and you obviously have spent a lot of time thinking about the presentation. However, you do have to have a "click here to read more" type of thing below each story header paragraph. Otherwise, just a quick overview imo it looks great. - Phil Glockner
You know, I never would have thought of that if you hadn't mentioned it. Now, to figure out how to implement that in WordPress... ;) - Andy DeSoto
I 2nd Phil - really clean. I was impressed, and that's not easy when it comes to web design :) The only issue I have is that there's a lot of blue; which is ok, but it's not being balanced out enough. Try using something to punch up the colour of those title links. AND/OR Try switching using a grey background and white container boxes. But listen -- this is just me being picky, it looks good. :) - Shey
Thanks for the thoughts, Shey, will definitely play around. (BTW, love the design on your personal site. The photo is a real wow-er.) - Andy DeSoto
The second one, strip_teaser, sets whether or not the "more" link should be hidden (TRUE) or displayed (FALSE). (Look under Read More Techniques) http://tinyurl.com/2r5ewa (If I could figure out how to move my "look" I'd move to WP!) :) - Heidi Jeffers Thibodeau
Thanks Andy :) - Shey
Hi Andy, one immediate thing you can do to the text is increase the line height to make it more scannable. You also want to move the most important information on your home page, who you are, to the left, to support the F pattern of reading. (People start in the top-left corner, and read down the left side, only scanning over to the right for things that grab their attention). - Mark Trapp
Hey Mark, thanks for the recommendation. Does moving the whole sidebar to the left side fix that, or is that just a lazy fix? (Take a peek now if you have a minute) - Andy DeSoto
If you make the about box the same height as your slideshow and put the sidebar back on the right, you'd have it. On the other pages, the most important part is going to be the content, so you don't want the Ad and sidebar taking up the prime real estate on the page. The big thing is to use the design to cue people to other parts of the page: preserving lines across the page (like by keeping the about box and the slideshow the same height) helps towards that. - Mark Trapp
But still keep the About box on the left of the slideshow? That'll take some design wrangling, okay. I definitely see what you're saying - Andy DeSoto
Yeah, you want to convey a sense of organization to what you're presenting. (made a little annotation here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/i...) The other thing is there's no cue to scroll down on the home page due to the google ad right after the featured story. If you can find a way to get the content below the fold a little higher up so it breaks at the fold, people will scroll down. Otherwise, all that content you have below the fold is dead content on the home page. - Mark Trapp
Thanks so much for mocking that up =) I will be working on these things tomorrow, I think I'm going to make weekends my non-content related focus time - Andy DeSoto
No problem! That's a good idea. Content is king, but usability is its concubine. - Mark Trapp
Nice one Mark -- can you do the same for me? http://www.sheysmith.com. I know I still need to do some work on it :) - Shey
Shey, I really like yours; it's very readable: large text, good spacing, and the most important items for a visitor are easily noticeable. There are a few things I'd suggest: besides your content, the second thing people will look for is information about who you are, especially when your content is deep linked. If you provide sidebar bio information on each page, could just be your name and a short sentence of who you are and what you blog about, it'd help tons. To that point, I'd suggest putting "About Me" second in your nav. - Mark Trapp
Additionally, I'd flip your sidebars: the more immediately useful content, like your archives and your topics, should be closer to the content a visitor is already reading. And finally, I'd move the search box up closer to the top right, which is the expected position for search. Finally, I'd recommend a way to get the interactive elements, specifically posting a comment to Disqus or Friendfeed, closer to the top; right now, especially a page with a lot of comments, there's a lot of scrolling to comment. - Mark Trapp
Thanks Mark, good tips. I do have an About Me section already: http://www.sheysmith.com/about... . My footer needs work as well, will get to that sometime - Shey
No problem! You have a good About Me page, you want to just make that a little more prominent: move it more to the left in the nav, and provide a small excerpt on each page and link to the full about page. Something like "I'm Shey Smith, and these are my thoughts on design (particularly web and print), social media, technology, sports, social issues, culture, self-development, and more. [link]Find more about me[/link]. You could probably lose the footer content entirely: it's content that's already presented elsewhere (like in Stalk Me) - Mark Trapp
Good points Mark, never thought about that, thanks! - Shey
ah, thesis, was looking at that .. i keep wanting to tweek the location of the main photo, if i could reach out with my hands and move it somehow. the designer wants it "there", so ... - Gregory Lent
Hehe, I've actually switched themes since this post to Thesis-- I have to ask this question all over again! - Andy DeSoto
FriendFeed
Andy DeSoto posted a message
“I'm thinking of buying an iPhone. Is this the one to get, or should I wait until the next one?”
July 11 at 6:35 pm - Link
It'll probably be ~year before another one. So this is the one to get if you want one. :) Better to get it now to maximize its lifespan before there's a new one to trigger another round of consumer lust! - James Williams (willia4)
That's what I've been thinking... =) - Andy DeSoto
Andy, at the moment I can't think of any game-changing technologies a new Iphone could bring, except for, say, better battery life, better camera, a keyboard, or being smaller. And most of those are evolutionary. Everything else I want is software based (cut and paste, video recording, flash support). I'm guessing most of those will come in time to all iphone users. - Phil Glockner
Get one. You won't be sorry. - Steve Isaacs
You might as well grab this one. - Corvida
I'd assume the FF crowd is biased. Early adopters usually are. I am no exception... buy one! It's a really great device. - Joe Perrin
FriendFeed
James Williams (willia4) posted a message
“I'm looking at Remember The Milk. It's neat but seems way too AJAXy. Is there a way to bookmark a view into a specific list?”
July 22 at 4:13 pm - Link
I want to set the homepage on my home computer to my "Home" list and the homepage on my work computer to "Work" list. - James Williams (willia4)
Ah I see,interesting. I believe I read something about that ... just a sec. Easy way: the widget: http://www.people.cornell.edu/... also RTM talks about using smart lists with Google Gears here: http://blog.rememberthemilk.co... - Phil Glockner
That's only good at home with my Mac...and it requires me to use Dashboard. Which I just don't do, so I'll forget about it. - James Williams (willia4)
Remember the Milk is great because you can combine it to tons of different tools and services. For example their add-on for Gmail is useful for many people. I use Mac, Windows and Linux and RTM works as gate from one to another as for keeping stuff together. - Daniel Schildt
Recently I haven't been using it too much but will use it more frequently soon. - Daniel Schildt
Has anyone written a "simple web page view" of it? - James Williams (willia4)
You can get print view directly from it but it's just list without direct possibility to edit items. We use that at work to print out to-do lists. - Daniel Schildt
FriendFeed
David Silvernail posted a message
“What is your feed reader of Choice? ”
July 8 at 8:49 pm - Link
netvibes++ - donato
Google Reader - Morton Fox
google reader - mike "glemak" dunn
Greader, but Steven Hodson really likes Newsgator's FeedDemon. - Phil Glockner
Friendfeed. :) I've started creating groups as imaginary people and just adding feeds to those groups. It works quite well for me so far. Keeps things quite organized. - Justin Korn
Google Reader - Louis Gray
Feedly a firefox 3 extension turns Google reader more socialable - Nick Cowie
Bloglines - David Knight
Justin - That is a very cool idea! You should write that up somewhere. - Phil Glockner
Google Reader. I used the Sage Firefox extension for a while, but Google Reader is up to date on any computer I happen to be on. - James Williams (willia4)
Google Reader - Franklin Pettit
Google Reader - Heidi Jeffers Thibodeau
Google Reader - Araceli
Google Reader - Mike Fruchter
FeedDemon - Steven Hodson
J.Phil - I thought about it, but I'm not the best of writers...I'll give it a go and you can build on it :) - Justin Korn
Justin, the best remedy for lack of skill is practice. I can guarantee you everyone on FriendFeed who is a blogger now started out crappy, and got better as they wrote more articles and posts. There is no "how to blog real good" class. - Phil Glockner
J.Phil - thanks for the encouragement....stay tuned - Justin Korn
google reader - Corvida
J.Phil: sorry to go off topic of this thread, but any suggestions here: http://friendfeed.com/e/250453... - Justin Korn
Finally got my post up on "FriendFeed as an RSS Reader" if anyone is interested. Would love feedback as I am just getting into this thing people like to call "blogging" - http://friendfeed.com/e/01052d... - Justin Korn
Good article Justin, keep it up! Thanks for following up on this thread! - Phil Glockner
I use Google reader with and import my feeds to http://feedly.com/ - Justin
google reader - johnpiercy
FriendFeed and Google Reader. Have also started to test how Flock works as feed reader but that's still limited to just several feeds like for comments to my blogs in WordPress.com and comments to images in Flickr. - Daniel Schildt
FriendFeed
Phil Glockner posted a message
“I added a few folks I know from FF as admins on this room.. I have a new request: Admins, if you invite people who you think are trustworthy, or see people who are room regulars, please promote them to admin. The more admins the better!”
July 8 at 8:13 am - Link
I'm trying to add a whole bunch of admins, so they can add other people as admins as they see fit. My only criteria is if I recognize the user name. - Phil Glockner
nice idea Phil - Dobromir Hadzhiev
Thanks! I have a feeling I'm going to annoy some people but I want to get some real traction on this concept. - Phil Glockner
Why the more admins the better? Not following you. - Steve Isaacs
My idea is that if I could get others excited about the room concept, they would help with getting the word out. I don't think it worked that well, though, to be completely honest. - Phil Glockner
i need to do the same thing in /appstore - thanks for reminding me :) - mike "glemak" dunn
I like this room concept. I'd try running a search on the word "question" in "everyone" then individually invite people. It's a bit old school, but would work. - Steve Isaacs
Thanks Steve! - Phil Glockner
Added Steve as an admin.. muahahaha! - Phil Glockner
thanks for the promotion boss ! - johnpiercy
FriendFeed
gregory posted a link
July 10 at 9:14 am - Link
Yes. ;) - ha3rvey
despise; but more because they are eternally boring and I have to fight sleep despite crackberry/ iphone/ pda usage. a 5 min email often would suffice at my co. and Honestly Its just about socially being present. - Gina K
using the body as a marker, lol - Gregory Lent
FriendFeed
ha3rvey posted a message
“Which wrinkle-free/-resistant pants should I buy for lots of upcoming air travel?”
July 25 at 8:53 am - Link
I suggest you invest (it's kind of expensive) in pants made at least partially out of tencel (a treated tree fiber that works awesome and has a great texture for this very purpose), and I am assuming you are talking business or business casual style as I can hardly imagine anyone caring about jeans. Try Nordstrom (they were the first to carry this material, and would have the best chance of finding mens pants in it), they are having a sale online, just search for tencel in men's wear. Tencel tends to wrinkle less and the ones that appear shake out quicker. It also tends to be a bit more wear worthy. I suggest not getting the front 9 tommy bahamas, the fit runs small. For more formal (or super formal, east coast style) business clothing, bring a suit bag and use a bathroom. - Gina K
Thanks, Gina. You're right, these will be for business casual wear with golf/polo shirts and the like. I've seen tencel stuff on the Nordstrom website, but I forget to look at it when I'm in the store. I may check some out tomorrow. - ha3rvey
FriendFeed
James Williams (willia4) posted a message
“What are the non-Mac competitors in the Mac-Mini-style space? I'm an Apple fanboy, so they're pretty much all I know these days; but I don't feel like spending $600 for a box that's going to sit behind my TV serving Internet traffic.”
July 25 at 12:39 pm - Link
ASUS is coming out with a Eee pc desktop. That might fit what you need. I don't know when they come out though. - Aaron Hood
my hubby & I have been using a custom xpc; (same front dimensions, but slightly longer) for a server along with 2 raided 1 TB "mybooks" for bi-weekly backups for a couple of years now, w/ no glitch, & no issue with either my macbook pro, our prev. mac tower (which was stolen on a move), Or w/ either of his work PC notebooks. We spent just over $200 on almost barebones. You can get it with a larger HD, we wanted a physically separate Raid system for max security (we design & admin websites). http://us.shuttle.com/ - Gina K
note on the XPC: look for a barebones version online, substantially cheaper. - Gina K
Warning though -- a few years ago I bought a replacement power supply for my shuttle XPC from shuttle directly, and my card was used for a TON of fraud immediately afterward. Definitely buy from a trusted source. - Phil Glockner
@ J. Phil, we bought from another vendor, so I can't say I had that problem, but it is good to know. I'll keep in mind if I need to add or replace. - Gina K
FriendFeed
Franklin Pettit posted a message
“Are you for or against FriendFeed etiquette? I am totally against it.”
July 9 at 10:48 am - Link
I would have to say that I'm against it, except that would make me a hypocrite.. I wrote a rant about a certain type of usage of FF that I didn't like. Well.. so be it. I'm a hypocrite and people should use FriendFeed however they like. - Phil Glockner
Define FriendFeed etiquette? Are there FriendFeed rules I am not aware of? - Michael Tefft
I am for some type of etiquette on FF. Realistically though, this would only be followed by a few people. I agree with Phil, people should use FF how ever they see fit. Mark Krynsky is correct in my opinion, regarding etiquette and centralizing the credit & conversation. - Mike Fruchter
I think FF will become a self policing system. If you are rude people won't follow you and the experience will be diminished. - Erica Toelle
It seems FF users are also searching for a way to reduce the noise in the stream. They want to reach out and set rules for duplicating content, etc. @Erica - you are correct FF will become self policing. That is the power of Hide and Block. - Franklin Pettit
FriendFeed etiquette is not an answer for noise. - Franklin Pettit
Against. I agree with Erica - Shey
Agree with Erica and I'm against etiquette as long as there is a Hide and Block feature. - Justin Korn
Link to conversation that Mike referred to...http://friendfeed.com/e/4a2d06... - Franklin Pettit
Link to David Risley post on FF Etiquette...http://friendfeed.com/e/46f0cf... - Franklin Pettit
Link to earliest FF Etiquette discussion I remember from Duncan Riley - http://friendfeed.com/e/a63f6a... - Franklin Pettit
The street finds its own uses for things. For all I know, someone might find a very good use for posting duplicate feeds to Friendfeed. I doubt it, but there it is. - K Welch
FriendFeed
Jill Howard Allen posted a message
“How much do you use social media for business travel? How do you use it?”
July 10 at 7:37 am - Link
I haven't done much travelling since I started my site. But I'm going to PAX at the end of next month, I guess I will find out! - Phil Glockner
A group of friends are going to a couple of conferences on the other side of the country, we organised a lot through twitter. Last year made use of twitter heavily, organise on the ground stuff, getting recommendations etc + shared google maps. - Nick Cowie
FriendFeed
James Williams (willia4) posted a message
“Did Last.Fm disable their on-demand stuff? I can't play anything but the 30 second previews, even for songs with the black play button (that I've never played before).”
July 8 at 10:39 am - Link
SOLVED I was confusing the gray buttons with the black buttons. I needed to see them both next to each other to be able to tell the difference. - James Williams (willia4)
Sorry, I didn't see this until just now. Glad you figured it out James! - Phil Glockner
FriendFeed
Phil Glockner posted a message
“There is no way of posting a message to the FriendFeed general population. So I created this room to do that. If you have a question or opinion, please ask. As more people follow the room, the better answers we will get.”
July 8 at 7:44 am - Link
just to note the irony, i saw this on the Everyone tab first - David Knight
Love this! Very helpful in following a conversation and love the feedback in FF. - Jill Howard Allen
Excellent, David! - Phil Glockner
Nicely done. - Bradley McSpinn
I will encourage all FF'ers to promote this room , the more the merrir - johnpiercy
FriendFeed
David Knight posted a message
“Dear Masses: Looking to add a little variety to my feed, what non-techies should I follow? Humor, art, factoids, good story telling, etc”
July 8 at 8:35 am - Link
Hey David, check out this thread: http://friendfeed.com/e/3359b3... A bunch of really good non-techies mentioned there. - Mark Trapp
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