The Nappy Cat Chronicles

I used to be a Twitter user, but have stopped for a few reasons.  One of them was my own lack of trending on topics and using the hashtags as much as I wanted.  However, the most important reason, and the reason why I think that Facebook still edges out Twitter in many aspects is Facebook’s ability have threaded posts.  Allowing for comments and replies to traverse on the same thread as a conversation does so much better than the random timeline stories a user gets from conversations being replied to back and forth from someone they follow.

Also, the threading allows for the conversation to be easily reprised as opposed to Twitter Direct Messages.  As well, threading keeps different topics separate.

Facebook has yet to be completely taken over by Twitter for the same reasons message boards have not been outdated or outmoded yet.  They simply offer more for conversation by length (obviously) and separation.  Critics of Facebook have always given flack for Facebook’s blatant copying of Twitter-like characteristics.  While that can easily be seen as true, the real problem is that it only adds to Facebook’s value, despite any “this is going to be the next MySpace failure” revelations.

All that said, Twitter does offer some things that no other medium can right now.  First, its ability to trend topics (and its use of hashtags) is useful, if not amazing.  Second, within the brevity of its posts, flame wars while still entirely possible, take so much more effort; maybe even enough effort to curtail them a bit.

As a side note, I still fail to understand why more users don’t use RSS feeds.  In fact, that’s another Twitter failing, not that they don’t use RSS feeds, they do.  The failing is that because most users don’t use RSS feeds, they pick up news from people they follow by looking at their timelines. The problem with looking only at timelines is that you may miss posts, or have users that are aware of this phenomenon and who continue to repost their news (I’m looking at you @Tim Harford) thereby adding duplicate posts for some people.

At the risk of being redundant, there is a silver lining for Twitter versus the idea of simply subscribing to a site’s RSS feed.  Twitter allows you to see the person you like conversing with whoever they converse, as opposed to not knowing who talks to whom with a plain RSS feed from a site.  But, you can easily fix that if you subscribe to someone’s Twitter RSS feed.  Of course, that defeats any argument for not using Twitter.

But not using Twitter has not been my argument.  I just think it has its limits, therefore keeping Facebook (and your own blog) relevant.

I hate lists like this one. 30+! Must-have! Updated! Missing are the arguments as to why you should be using any of those Firefox 3 plugins. It’s a perfect example of Digg-bait.

There are many plugins to be had but a plugin is useless if you don’t need it. The following are the Firefox plugins that I use and why I use them:

• Adblock (The Original): For an unknown reason, this Firefox 3 incompatible began working with my installation. Though Adblock Plus is just fine if the original does not work with your Firefox 3, I find the original to be more user-friendly and less bulky than Adblock Plus. Now, why should you use either of these? If you like avoid seeing 99% of internet advertisements, these plugins are for you.
• ColorZilla: For the web designer, this enables you to know the html color of any element on a webpage. This is super-neat because it presents you with multiple formats from which to copy the color code. So, for “white”, you can choose between the rgb, white, #FFFFFF, and FFFFFF.
• Download Statusbar: When you’ve downloaded a file through Firefox 3, have you thought, “Damn, that popup window is obtrusive.”? Download Statusbar relegates the downloader to its own bar just above the Firefox status bar. Or, if you prefer, it can add a small icon to the status bar instead.
• Forecastfox: While surfing the internet, have you regularly thought, “Damn, I need to check the weather.”? Arguably the best Firefox plugin, Forecastfox adds weather information to the Firefox status bar. You can go as crazy as you want with current conditions, daily forecasts, extended forecats, weather alerts, and radars.
• IE View: Not all websites play nice with Firefox. Some videos refuse to work in Firefox. IE View adds “View This Page in IE” to your right-click menu. This enables you to open the current webpage in your Windows Internet Explorer.
• Image Zoom: Have you ever thought, “Damn, I wish I could zoom in on that section of this image.”? Image Zoom enables you to do that.
• OpenBook: OpenBook solved a Firefox 2 bookmarking annoyance. It works with Firefox 3 but I have no idea what it does now.
• Pearl Crescent Page Saver Basic: Have you ever needed to take and save a screenshot of an entire webpage? Though it can get hungup on very long pages (such as Mypace profiles), Page Saver Basic enables you to create a screenshot that has adequate image quality.
• QuickDrag: QuickDrag enables you to, first, drag a highlighted word on a webpage and have the word be searched for by whatever search engine you have chosen for the search bar located in the top right corner of your Firefox browser. Second, it enables you to “[s]elect something on a webpage that looks like a URL and then drag-and-drop it anywhere to open the URL in a new tab.” Finally, when you click on an image, drag it, and let go of the mouse button, QuickDrag saves the image to your chosen download folder.
• Sxipper: Sxipper is an incredibly useful plugin that puts your personal profile information and your plethora of username and password combinations at the tip of your fingertips. If you have ever thought, “Damn, this Firefox login manager is the most useless piece of shit in the history of the universe.”, give Sxipper a try.
• Tab Mix Plus: Have you ever looked at the Firefox tab bar and thought, “Damn, I wish I could do this or that with with these tabs.”? Tab Mix Plus might just enable you to do this or that.

I’m not quite sure what this is all about but apparently it’s rechargeable.Update: I guess TrekStor removed it. It was a small mp3 player called i.Beat blaxx. Here’s the engadget writeup.

Update II: Someone on the internets captured the screen before it was yanked:

BitTorrent, the software that enables you to watch those television shows that you missed, the movies that aren’t worth your $9.25, and to listen to the albums that have yet to be officially released, came to a head sometime within the last couple months. It officially accounted for over 50% of p2p web traffic. This is no small feat. I myself have been guilty of partaking in the fruits of the poisonous tree and adding a few seeds of my own. Not to toot my own horn, but here are two big torrent I have started:

Coldplay Collection (3 Albums, 2 B-Sides, 10 Singles and EPs): Completed at least 18,020 times.

Sarah McLachlan Collection (9 Albums and 2 EPs): Completed at least 27,630 times.

That’s a bit of an achievement for me personally. I’m glad that the music I love is being enjoyed by 10′s of 1000′s of people.

Anyway, back to BitTorrent. BitTorrent suffers from the same problem that Napster did, it currently requires centralization. There is an entity, or in this case multiple entities, for the RIAA and the MPAA to attack.

(Exeem, a SuprNova project in beta, will decentralize BitTorrent and turn it into something like KaZaa. However, the problem is with ensuring file authenticity. It is possible for different files to share the same checksum code.)

I suggest that current members-only torrent sites close their registration. Any public torrent sites should become membership-only and check ip’s against the database of known affiliates of the RIAA, MPAA, etc. Members-only sites should run the ip’s of their current membership crop against the same database. Weed out those bastards who want to take down their site.

Also, it would be wise if torrent sites limited donation solicitation to members-only pages. The paypal link has gotten more than a few torrent sites in trouble. On his front page, Lowkee of LokiTorrent is raising 300,000 for legal fees. (That’s a decent sum of money to embezzle and live off of frugally for the rest of one’s life.)

Although downloading contents creates a demand for that content, I’m sure the RIAA and MPAA feel totally out of control of the situation. This, in turn, places the burden on you, the consumer. You who downloaded the tracks and went to Virgin and purchased the album. You who downloaded the movie only to see it in the theater, and then purchase the first release DVD, the collector’s edition, and the platinum collector’s edition.

So, we shall see what comes of this. The big money-makers will continue to bully and consumers will continue to download for sure. One other thing I am always sure of: Technology always triumphs.