Offline Blog
duminică, 7 decembrie 2008
Google Friend Connect goes Beta - and I though they liked me...
joi, 4 decembrie 2008
A few hours ago I got and e-mail telling me that Google Friend Connect (GFC) is now available for me. Yeee, hapy me. I applied for GFC about 3 months ago, when I was really interested in testing it out. Time passed and GFC was almost forgoten b. And now - They really liled me, they finally gave me access to GFC. Yes, me, and you and everybody else. Because GFC is now private beta.
I'm not that special to Goolge :(. But anyway, it's quite interesting, check it out, it's worth the time. And to quote the Google blog "Google Friend Connect is now available in beta to any webmaster looking to add a "dash of social" to his or her site".
Do we want 500 “friends”? Why?
marți, 25 noiembrie 2008
My big question – why do we spend so much time writing stuff to and for people we barely know. Maybe you are using some sort of IM software or website, or using some kind of social network website, like Facebook, hi5, MySpace, or my favorite, at the moment, microbloging like Twitter. Maybe you even go farther and build a blog and write about things.
If you do this as part of your business, to connect with your customers, to be out there, on the web, then everything is very clear. That's why I didn't mention earlier LinkedIn. That's business, not friends. It's a different kind of animal.
But what about the rest of the cases? The answer is, actually, very well known and discussed. A guy called Abraham Maslow, way back in 1943, in the dark days of no Internet (scary thought) wrote a paper called “A Theory of Human Motivation” were he presented what's now known as “Maslow's hierarchy of needs”. Great stuff. Smart stuff.
Anybody who studies economics knows this one. There are other motivation theories out there. Some say it's stupid to even try to make a hierarchy of the needs, but this is not about this. I say that you just need to think about yourself and if you identify yourself with this hierarchy then this Maslow guy was smart.
But anyway, just look at it. We go to work, and we make money and then what? We have food, a place to stay and not much time left. Physiological and Safety – checked. But wait! There's Twitter, yeeee! And we start writing, we friend people who we know in real life, and then people that we don't know and before you know it there is a bunch of people talking to YOU. Great! Love/Belonging – checked. Uuu, and look coolcat1340 said I'm funny, and johny78 said I'm cool, and I helped that guy to find a picture of a bunny with a hat. Esteem – checked. Everybody is bloging so I'll start a blog too and write about that guy in the subway. I write good, I'm smart, I got 5 comments, cool! Self-Actualization – checked.
And there you have it folks. We need to do this kind of stuff. Even more, we LOVE doing this kind of stuff. We are human, social animals, and we know it. We can do this wherever we are, write stuff all day. While at work, on the way from/to home, while shopping, in bed, on the toilet, you got the idea.
But how much of this is really a scam? You know, physically, some of the people. You don't know most of them. How many are you real “friends”? Not many. When you have 500+ and counting do you really care if mr/mrs 652 is not writing anymore? Maybe you do, for 2 days.
So is there something more lasting in the Worl Wide Web? Oh ye'. There are communities!
What's the difference? Easy – they stick together. There's something that drives a community, a common interest, an idea. If I like eating Chinese food today, I'll most likely have the same taste tomorrow and I'll still be interested in a good restaurant a week later. But this is a different story.
For now, I'll just finish this post and maybe I'll get a comment! Oh, I'm so smart!
My job simulator or the geek way of thinking about life
sâmbătă, 15 noiembrie 2008
I have to admit, I am a bit ashamed of my self, better said, ashamed of my geekines... again.
While waiting for my colleagues to shut down their computers, after a long day at work I put together a few lines of code to depict the fact that after a day of work it was time to go home.
And sent these to them. And waited for the reaction. Which came. In the form of "Ha ha ha" and "you lost it" and so on. You've got the picture.
But that is ancient history in IT time (2-3 weeks old).
Yesterday, during a wall staring session I thought I could do better then 10 lines of uncompilable code, right?
Thus "My job simulator" was born. It's still in pre alfa, so bare with me.
You can get the .cs file from here. It's C# .NET code.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
namespace Work
{
///
/// This is my job simulator. Using highly advanced methods, like going to work, I've
/// managed to put together this incredible program. It will simulate with unbelievable
/// accuracy a typical work or weekend day.
/// Just put in the configuration section your data and watch it go!
/// After you will be astonished by the accuracy, you can always donate to keep the project
/// alive!
///
class Job
{
public static DateTime TimeToGoHome;
public static DateTime Today;
public static int CheckClockStep;
public static bool IsJobCool = false;
private static bool IsTimeToGoHome = false; //Used for very complicated calculations
private static int Chance; // Used in highly advanced algorithms.
private static Random _Random = new Random(); // Used in highly advanced algorithms.
static void Main(string[] args)
{
//Configuration Section - Replace with your own values//
// Today's date and hour. Format year, month, day, hour, second, millisecond
Today = new DateTime(2008,11,14,9,2,35,14);
// Time when you go home. Format year, month, day, hour, second, millisecond
TimeToGoHome = new DateTime(Today.Year, Today.Month, Today.Day, 18, 0, 0, 0);
// How long you can resist without checking what time is it.
CheckClockStep = 20;
// Do you thing your job is cool?!? Do you?
IsJobCool = false;
Console.WriteLine("Today is " + Today.DayOfWeek.ToString() + "!");
if (Today.DayOfWeek != DayOfWeek.Saturday && Today.DayOfWeek !=
DayOfWeek.Sunday)
GoWork();
else
BeHappy();
Console.ReadLine();
}
private static void GoWork()
{
//We all know how things are on Friday...
if (Today.DayOfWeek == DayOfWeek.Friday)
CheckClockStep = 10;
//Nothing works n the first 2 hours anyway, why bother?
if (Today.DayOfWeek == DayOfWeek.Monday)
Today.AddHours(2);
IsTimeToGoHome = WorkOne();
if (IsTimeToGoHome)
Console.WriteLine("HOME!");
else
Console.WriteLine("Something Broke! If I'm quick nobody will notice, going home...");
}
private static void BeHappy()
{
Chance = RandomNumber(0, 100);
if (IsJobCool)
{
if (Chance > 99)
{
IsJobCool = false;
Console.WriteLine("job's not cool anymore");
Console.WriteLine("Working...");
}
else
Console.WriteLine("Enjoying life");
}
else
Console.WriteLine("Enjoying life");
}
private static bool WorkOne()
{
try
{
while (Today < TimeToGoHome)
{
Chance = RandomNumber(1,10);
if (IsJobCool)
{
if (Chance <>
Console.WriteLine("Actually Working");
else
Console.WriteLine("Annoing friends by telling how cool my job is");
}
else
{
if (Chance == 1)
Console.WriteLine("Having Coffee");
else if (Chance == 2)
Console.WriteLine("Reading Emails");
else if (Chance == 3)
Console.WriteLine("Reading Blogs");
else if (Chance == 4)
Console.WriteLine("Twitting");
else if (Chance == 5)
Console.WriteLine("Helping Colleagues");
else if (Chance == 6)
{
int CanWin = RandomNumber(0, 100);
Console.WriteLine("Having an argument with my boss and...");
if (CanWin <>
Console.WriteLine("... winning");
else if (CanWin >= 51)
Console.WriteLine("... losing");
}
else if (Chance == 7)
Console.WriteLine("Staring at the monitor");
else if (Chance == 8)
Console.WriteLine("Working...");
else
Console.WriteLine("Trying to look like actually working");
}
Today = Today.AddMinutes(CheckClockStep);
}
}
catch
{
//Something Broke
return false;
}
return true;
}
private static int RandomNumber(int Min, int Max) {
return _Random.Next(Min, Max);
}
}
}
This code compiles and runs. If you run it, you will be amzaed by the astonishing accuracy.
Next version may never come...
The girl, the bag and the butt - the story of a geek
duminică, 9 noiembrie 2008
I want to share with you what happened to me last Friday... As usual, I woke up, just enough to get dressed an go to work, and was sitting in the metro, doing a little bit of people watching and thinking about the purpose of being. When I was just about to find the answer I noticed something orange - it was a laptop bag, a nice one. Black and orange, with a strap. The owner - a girl, was minding her own business. The geek in me kept staring at the bag - very nice colors, nice design, super cool neoprene laptop bag. And kept staring, and kept staring and then... the girl turned and gave me a look that could make the sun turn into a snow ball, then she turned away and that was it.
But my question was now - WHY? What did I do - then I looked at the bag again and... a little to the left and I noticed the reason - it was there - the butt. She thought I was staring at her butt!
If only she new the geek I am...
I felt so geeky then... and I still feel geeky. I should go out more. I should stop writing this post and go have a drink with my friends!
I'm gone already... after I finish this, and check my Tweeter account... and my e-mail...
Can it get worse then this?
Me.Blog.Post.End();
Me.Go.HaveADrink(DateTime.Now);
Weapon of mass Tweetstruction
miercuri, 29 octombrie 2008
Old news, but hey - facts are never old ;).
octombrie 2008You all by know probably heard about the warning the US army made concerning how Twitter can be used by terrorists to communicate and spread their ideology. But I'm just wandering, are these people serious?
The guys at Joy of Tech really managed to give this the right spin, from my point of view.
Ok, you have the bad guys talking to each other and plotting using social apps. I can agree with this, especially given yesterday's news about the skinhead assassination plot on Obama and the fact that one of the guys was "smart" enough to put his picture with a very big gun on MySpace.
But I see one problem in this whole ordeal. People, you already scan e-mails, listen to cellphones, landlilnes and the whole deal... how difficult is it to google some specific keywords. It's a little hard to hide an assasination plot on MySpace / Twitter / whatever. The US army should think about encouraging everybody to use Twitter to coordonate on deploing their weapons of mass distruction, it will just make their lives as easy as googling "how I plan to blow up the world"...
noiembrie 2008
decembrie 2008
