Saturday, February 27, 2010

Synchronizing the Social Web

It was a social experiment, and I am happy with the result. I just wanted to see how far I can really push this social media thing. Initially, I was apprehensive about doing it, since I had to provide a lot of information for others to see. Then I realized that a stranger is a friend that you have not known yet. With that in mind, I went in 100%.

I had a Facebook account last year and a blogger account since 2008. Both weren't active.

In fact I terminated the Facebook account last year. I restarted it again this year. Here's the timeline:

Timeline:
I joined Plaxo first then LinkedIn . Can't remember the exact date, it should be somewhere early February or late January 2010.



6th February 2010.
Don't ask me about the significance. It just happened, maybe it was a lazy Saturday. I joined Facebook and now with 107 friends and Twitter now with 73 followers.

7th February 2010.
Created Posterous blog account and first post on it. As of yesterday, it had generated 518 site views. I always wanted to write and I found at that point, Posterous was easy. I was intrigued by the idea of autopost.

Just emailed to Posterous and all your social sites get updated. It made things easier. So my blog does not remain unconnected and it gets the visibility in Facebook.

09 Feb 2010
Google buzz launched. I was already on Gmail and a lot of other google apps, it was just a natural progression. Anyway I think Google found that social networking is a key element of the next wave. They launched straight away without putting it on Beta. Gmail was taken out of its Beta phase only just recently. Right now I have 12 followers in my Google Buzz.

Google did have another networking tool before call the Wave. I loved the idea though I find it a little bit overwhelming. Anyway it requires an invitation. It's still a work in progress.

11 Feb 2010.
Burned RSS feed for Posterous. As of today: 7 subscribers.

14 February 2010.
Then I remembered that I have an account at Blogspot, and yes it was till there. Created Gazali's Thoughts and first post on this blog. As of yesterday it had generated 420 page views.

20 February 2010.

Burned RSS feed for "Gazali's Thoughts". As of today: 12 subscribers.

Somewhere around this time, I found blogger was easier to modify. Posterous was not that easy. It didn't integrate with adsense and I had to comb the HTML just to include Amazon. It didn't support Java and that was a big downer. I probably could easily modified the CSS/HTML. The thing is, I don't have the luxury of time. I then set out to find if blogger could do what Posterous did for autoposting.

In the mean time, I apologized to all my friends. You probably see a lot of double or triple posting of the same item in news feed on Facebook. I was just seeing how the things will work and I think its better now. Blogger worked like Posterous on autoposting. You just have to configure a lot more web application services.

Summary of how my post will propogated through my social network.
An article was written here. it could even be by email if I wanted to.
  • Post fed into RSS feed about new article.
  • TwitterFeed picks up the RSS feed. I wanted to use Ping.fm, unfortunately they were down for the whole of the week. They were being acquired by Seesmic. Maybe I look at it later.
  • Shortened URL generated by Bit.ly through TwitterFeed. I have already signed up for Bit.ly. It gives an indication of how many people read the article.
  • TwitterFeed then feeds into my Twitter account. This is the main where things get wild. My twitter account is connected to my Facebook, Posterous, Linkedin and some other services.
  • Twitter will then feed the post into my Facebook and through all my other social networks.
I hope you understand. I do get lost in it, sometimes. That's how its under the hood. It is like a car.

I built up the engine and whatever components needed for the car and all I need to do now is simply turn on the ignition.

Of course there is some outages. Facebook was slightly down last week and so was Twitter. Sometimes Facebook updates my status from Twitter a little bit longer. And Facebook native Notes application updates a couple of hours later. Though it still get updated.

So, if I write a post, my Facebook and other social sites will get updated.

The ignition key
If I update my status on Facebook; my Plaxo, Blog and LinkedIn gets updated too. In fact its all connected to a certain degree. I could just go on Twitter and tweet something and everything else gets updated too. Similarly with the other social sites as wll

My next step is to have all my info synced consistently throughout my social network. So that is how my social network gets updated. I know, it looks complicated enough, and I will try to break it down step by step, for you to follow. There is obviously a purpose for this.

Do check back once awhile, or get connected through my Twitter, Facebook, Plaxo or LinkedIn accounts. You can also opt in by getting emails of my post or subscribing via RSS.

Feel free to comment and thank you.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

On 911

The truth will be known.

Comic

A comic by Aiman, my 8-year young son. Just don't ask me to explain.

Page 1


















Page 2

Integrity, Truth & Honesty



















How do we keep our integrity in a world that can sometimes be unforgiving.
Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.
Spencer Johnson.
We always want to live to our highest ideals, yet at times it is not to our advantage. How many times have we tried and in the end its better to just keep quiet.

So what happenes? Most of us would just remain silent, or speak with selectively truths.

What are selective truths?

You are late in meeting your friend. She SMS you asking where you are? The fact is, you are just about to leave your house. What do you reply?

"I'm already on the way there. Will be there as soon as possible"

What you didn't tell her was that you forgot and still at the house getting ready to go.

The overriding concern of most people is self-preservation. When was the last time you said something that you know will affect your well-being?

So most of us will go with life with all these burdens secretly carried in our hearts.

It is always difficult when you leave a company. It is not about the company, its about the colleagues that have become friends. People like to belong in a group. That's why Facebook is widely popular. You just want to be in a group. I would too.

It becomes difficult when they ask why are you leaving and where are you going?

My advice. If any of your colleagues are leaving the company, don't put her in a difficult position. Don't ask her where she is going. Just respect her decision, update contact details and called after she left.

Why?

She might be joining a rival firm, and by asking her where she is going, you put her in a position to lie. And what happens when you found out the truth? You feel betrayed. The fact is you put her in a position to lie.

Do not confuse friendship with loyalty to a company. A company exist for the sole purpose of making profits for its owner, most will never think twice of letting you go, if their bottom lines are at stake.

Yes, there are labour unions. They can protect your job. Not really, some companies are very creative in dealing with lay-offs. Instead of letting people go en-masse, they do it bit by bit, so as not to arouse suspicion. Some would simply call in "structural re-engineering" or "change of management" and make you sign a new employment contract.

You have only two choices, accept the new terms or leave.

So when you friend is leaving the company, don't ask where she is going; ask, if you really want to know, after she left.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

North Tower

Thanks to the internet, the truth will be known. Was there intense fire at the site?

On Thursday February 12 2005 a fire broke out in the Windsor tower in Madrid, Spain. The fire was intense and burned for nearly 2 days.

800 Degrees Inferno





















It illuminated Madrid at night.

With that kind of intense BBQ, you would expect the building to collapse as in the 911 twin tower which happened in earlier in 2001.

It didn't. It withstood the fire.






















About 911 Controlled demolition.



A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes he sees as the best, and scorns a guide.
Samuel Butler

3rd Posting test

Autopost Test 3 conditions.
Technical Post.
  • Post written in Blogger.
  • Posterous autopost to twitter and facebook switched off (deleted). Currently its only autoposting to LinkedIn, Scribd and Picasa.
  • Signed up for bit.ly for API login and key for twitterfeed.
  • Signed up for twitterfeed. Configure for twitter only. Feed by blogger rss feed.

Expected result:
Post appear in Posterous.
Post appear in Facebook wall through NetworkedBlogs
Bit.ly link created.
Google Buzz updated with bit.ly.
Twitter updated. With Subject header and Bit.ly link
Bit.ly link points to Blogger.

Results of 2nd test

2 Test condition.
Post written in Gmail and emailed to Blogger.
A sample picture attached.

Expected result:
Post appear in Blogger (with Picture).
Post appear in Posterous (with Picture)
Post appear in Facebook stream
Post.ly link created.
Google Buzz updated.
Twitter updated. With Subject header and post.ly link
Picture in Picasa.
LinkedIn activity updated.

Actual Result:
Post appear in Blogger (with Picture). Sucess.
Post appear in Posterous (with Picture). Sucess.
Post appear in Facebook stream, Sucess.
Post.ly link created, Sucess.
Google Buzz updated. Sucess.
Twitter updated. With Subject header and post.ly link. Sucess.
Picture in Picasa. Sucess.
LinkedIn activity updated. Sucess.

Notes:
Facebook Notes still not updated.
Twitter updates Facebook.
Posterous reply back to email with post.

Conclusion:
Currently to easily post to most social network sites belongs to Posterous. There is however one serious limitation of posterous. You got to learn HTML to modify your page. There is no easy way to integrate Java apps into it. My HTML skills are not that extensive here. After using Blogger, it was easy to put in "widgets". Themes are widely available. Blogger now supports muliple pages which is a great help. You can have a dynamic Home page and static pages for information that doesn't change often like "About me", or post to differenet pages based on topics.

Use posterous to leverage on its autoposting capabilities. At Blogger, make sure email notifications are filled in to email to posterous. Activate Posterous autopost to your social sites. Don't activate the autopost to blogger. If you do you have 2 same post on blogger.

For twitter, I decided on to switch off the update to facebook simply because I find using twitter easier to update my facebook status plus my other social sites.

If you want just a simple blog that automatically updates Facebook, then posterous is the easiest way. Though in Facebook that can easily be achieved using NetworkedBlogs.

This is just an interim report. I will gather more info and post it here.




2nd Test on Autopost from blogger

Running 2nd Test. Please ignore post.

Result of 1st test.

Conditions
Autopost to blogger from Posterous disabled.
Writing post on blogger editor. Blogger set to email post to Posterous

Expected result:
Post appear in Posterous, Facebook and Twitter. Will not repost back to Blogger.

Actual Result:
Posterous:
Successful, no repost back to Blogger.
Emailed back to Gmail. Posterous reply.
Google Buzz updated through connected sites (Blogger).
Posted to Facebook stream via Posterous not networked blog. (If from Gmail to Posterous, post posted via Networkedblogs).
Notes in Facebook not updated immediately. Time Lag about 1hr 30mins or so. (Wonder why? When Posterous and Networkedblogs can update within minutes).
Post.ly created.
Twitter updated with Post's Subject and post.ly address.
LinkedIn Activity updated

Result of test: Successful. Work as predicted.

2 Test condition.
Post written in Gmail and emailed to Blogger. A sample picture attached.

Expected result:
Post appear in Blogger (with Picture).
Post appear in Posterous (with Picture)
Post appear in Facebook stream
Post.ly link created.
Google Buzz updated.
Twitter updated. With Subject header and post.ly link
Picture in Picasa.
LinkedIn activity updated.



Testing Posting on Blogger

Running test. Please ignore post.

Posterous autopost link to blogger disabled. Writing post on blogger editor. Blogger set to email post to Posterous

Expected result. Post appear in Posterous, Facebook and Twitter. Will not repost back to Blogger.

Emissions vows not enough to avoid 2 deg C rise: UN - Yahoo! Canada News

If at first you don't succeed, lie again and again.
Why is the United Nations still pushing this global warming hoax? AGW is simply cause by scientists blowing off hot air.


Tue Feb 23, 5:49 AM
By Sunanda Creagh

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Emission cuts pledges made by 60 countries will not be enough to keep the average global temperature rise at 2 degrees Celsius or less, modeling released on Tuesday by the United Nations says.

Scientists say temperatures should be limited to a rise of no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) above pre-industrial times if devastating climate change is to be avoided.
Yearly greenhouse gas emissions should not be more than 40 and 48.3 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent in 2020 and should peak between 2015 and 2021, according to new modeling released on Tuesday by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Keeping within that range and cutting global emissions by between 48 percent and 72 percent between 2020 and 2050 will give the planet a "medium" or 50-50 chance of staying within the 2 degree limit, said the report, which was based on modeling by nine research centres.

However, the same study found that the world is likely to go over those targets. The pledges were made by nations that signed up to the Copenhagen Accord.

"The expected emissions for 2020 range between 48.8 to 51.2 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent, based on whether high or low pledges will be fulfilled," the report said.
In other words, even in a best-case scenario where all countries implement their promised cuts, the total amount of emissions produced would still be between 0.5 and 8.8 gigatonnes over what scientists see as tolerable.

Greenhouse gas levels are rising, particularly for carbon dioxide, because more is remaining in the atmosphere than natural processes can deal with.

Carbon dioxide is naturally taken up and released by plants and the oceans but mankind's burning of fossil fuels such as coal for power and destruction of forests means the planet's annual "carbon budget" is being exceeded.

OTHER OPTIONS
UNEP's executive director Achim Steiner said the bleak prediction should motivate countries to make more ambitious cuts.
"The message is not to sit back and resign and say we will never make it," he told reporters in Nusa Dua on the Indonesian island of Bali, which is hosting a major U.N. environment meeting.

"But it's not enough at the moment and there are other options that can be mobilised."
Steiner said one such option was more investment in a scheme called reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), in which poor countries are paid to preserve and enhance their forests.

A state of the environment assessment released by UNEP on Tuesday, the UNEP Year Book 2010, also advocated more investment in REDD.

"It has been estimated that putting $22 billion to $29 billion into REDD would cut global deforestation by 25 percent by 2015," the report said.
Forests soak up large amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide. Cutting them down and burning the remains releases vast amounts of the gas, exacerbating global warming, scientists say.

REDD is not yet part of a broader climate pact that the U.N. hopes to seal by the end of year at major climate talks in Mexico.

Steiner told reporters a day earlier he expected talks this year to be a tough slog. The Copenhagen climate summit last December ended with a political accord that was not formally adopted and no clarity on the shape of a new climate pact to succeed the current Kyoto Protocol.

"A deal has become more difficult than in Copenhagen. Let's be very frank. The world has moved away, rather than closer, to a deal," he told reporters. "The politics of international negotiation and the economics, the momentum that built up toward Copenhagen will not be there for Mexico.
(Editing by David Fogarty)




















Tuesday, February 23, 2010

American Radical


Asked yourself this question;
If someone comes to your house with a holy book claiming that 2000 years ago the house belongs to his family, would you pack up you bags and leave your house?



Sunday, February 21, 2010

Adventures in Tech Land


Technology. What is it? According to dictionary defination it is:
–noun
  1. the branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical means and their interrelation with life, society,and the environment, drawing upon such subjects as industrial arts, engineering, applied science, and pure science.
  2. the terminology of an art, science, etc.; technical nomenclature.
  3. a technological process, invention, method, or the like.
  4. the sum of the ways in which social groups provide themselves with the material objects of their civilization.
What I think is that technology is simply to make things easier.

Technology should always be in the background and not in the forefront screaming for attention. How many of us have hi-tech gadgets and only use a small fraction of its capabilities. From our HD DVD players right to our mobile phones and to our laptops, we have to learn a lot of operating systems, just to operate them.

Even in using web apps, we need to know how to configure it. From Facebook to Gmail to rss readers, it can sometime be overwhelming. I use a lot of online apps like Gmail, Google docs, Google reader and a plethora of others. I store a lot of documents online. What I can automate, I would have done it. Like this post. I writing it on my Gmail client, emailed it and it will update to all my social sites.

In my facebook account, it will appear in the Notes and on the wall and it will generate a twitter on my twitter account. Then it will be posted into my blog at blogspot and into my Picasa (if there are pictures) and to my ebook storage (if there are pdfs attached). It will also update my linkedin status. Finally it goes into my Google Buzz. Complicated isn't it.

The good thing about it, its all free. Your commitment is only to find the time to read about all the technical details and tweaking the settings. Some are obvious, almost all are obscure. I wonder if there are fees to be paid, how many would use it?

Would you pay a monthly fee for Facebook? Or Gmail? Facebook have 400 million active users. At just $1 per month, they can easily generate $400,000,000 in a month.

I do not have a Microsoft office, instead I use Open Office.

Initially I have a lot of faith in the so called "cloud computing". I was already using gmail. Then back in 2006 an earthquake struck Taiwan which results in the internet being disrupted. I was left high and dry simply because nearly all my stuff is up in the clouds.

Now I maintained and offline backup of all my documents.

In fact you should always have an offline copy of your stuff. Governments, even the so called "bastion of free speech Western countries" can and will cut your internet access. Be wary of any devices that only let you store your stuff online, you might and can be selectively cut off.

Today, I spend the whole day exploring this social media phenomenon. There are so many possibilities. Later on, I'll be posting on how to set up each individual accounts. All you need to do, I just simply read and follow. I will be doing it step by step until you will have a strong web presence. Just key in "Gazali's Thoughts" in google in you get what I mean.

Don't worry it will not be complicated, I'll strip away the jargon and make it easier.

That's why the next development in IT should just simply let you get things done without figuring how to do it. It should be like a car, all you need to do is just turn the ignition on and drive, Maintenance? The car simply reminds you when it need to be serviced.





































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